METAGOSPELS: Thomas & Philip & Valentine
(The Gospel of Thomas, The Gospel of Philip and the Gospel of Truth)
Ecumenical Coptic Project, 1998: www.metalog.org

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INTRODUCTION

	In December of 1945 some Egyptian peasants found over 1100 pages of 
ancient papyrus manuscripts buried by the east bluff of the upper Nile valley. 
The texts were translations from Greek originals into Coptic°, the Hellenistic 
stage of the ancient language of the Pharaohs--evolving after the invasion of 
Alexander the Great in 332 BC and subsequently replaced by Arabic following the 
Muslim conquest of 640 AD.
	The site of this discovery, across the river from the modern town of Nag 
Hammadi, was already famous as the location called in antiquity ChHNOBOSKEION 
(Goose-Pasture), where in 320 AD Saint Pachomius founded the earliest Christian 
monastery. Less than a half-century later in 367 AD (and thus 30 years prior to 
the canonization of the NT at the Third Council of Carthage), the local monks 
copied some 45 diverse religious writings--including the Gospels of Thomas, 
Philip and Valentine--into 13 leather-bound codices. This entire library was 
carefully sealed in an urn and hidden nearby among the rocks, where it remained 
undetected for almost 1600 years. These papyri are now preserved in the library 
of the Coptic Museum at Old Cairo.
	The author of the Thomas Gospel is recorded as Thomas the Apostle, one of 
the Twelve. The text is a collection of 117 sayings and dialogues of the Savior, 
without any connecting narrative. A few Christian authors quoted it in 
antiquity--for example #2, by Clement of Alexandria (±150-211 AD) in his 
Stromata (Patches)--but without explicit attribution to Thomas. Then 100 years 
ago at Oxyrhynchus in Egypt, there were discovered a few fragments of what we 
now know to be a prior Greek version of Thomas, dated by paleography to 200-250 
AD (one page of which is on display in the British Museum in London; see 
Bibliography #8). The more recent discovery of the Coptic version of Thomas has 
finally made this Gospel available in its entirety. As indicated in the press 
release below, almost all biblical scholars who have been studying this document 
since its first publication have now concluded that Thomas must be accounted an 
authentic fifth Gospel, alongside the canonical quartet of John and the 
synoptics.
	The Gospel of Philip--as can be inferred from its entries 51, 82, 98 & 
101--was completed after 70 AD by Philip called the Evangelist, who appears in 
the Book of Acts at 6:1-6, 8:4-40 & 21:8 ff. There is no known previous citation 
of this text, which is an elaborate and elegant series of reflections on Israel 
and the Messiah.
	The Gospel of Truth was composed in about 150 AD by Valentine, the famous 
Saint of Alexandria (born 100± AD). A continuous interwoven meditation on the 
Logos, it was widely known in antiquity--but until the Nag Hammadi discovery no 
copy of this noble document was known to be extant.
	The translations themselves are both as literal and as lyrical as I could 
make them. Plausible textual reconstructions are in [brackets], while editorial 
additions are in (parentheses). '[...]' indicates that it is not possible to 
interpolate the deterioration of the papyrus manuscript. The Greek Oxyrhynchus 
variants to Thomas are within <frames>. 'Thou' and its cognates represent the 
singular, 'you' and its cognates are plural. Notes at the end of each text are 
marked with a circle°. Only less-obvious but significant scriptural cross-
references are given; thus numerous parallels to familiar passages in the 
synoptics have not been listed, to spare the reader looking up what is already 
well-known. Also, it is virtually impossible to capitalize consistently in texts 
such as these (in antiquity, of course, there were no lower-case letters); I ask 
the reader's indulgence in this regard.
	In place of the Greek form, Jesus (IHSOUS), the original Aramaic has been 
used: Yeshúa, meaning 'Yahweh-Savior' (Ph 20a). 'I•Am' represents the divine 
self-naming: Hebrew AHYH, Greek EGW EIMI, Coptic ANOK PE (Th 13).
	Lastly, I have appended three commentaries: (1) 'The Female Spirit', on 
the gender in the Semitic languages of RUAKH HA-QODESH [Spirit the-Holy]; (2) 
'Angel and Image', regarding these two primary concepts as found in the texts; 
and (3) 'The Paul Paradox', a philosophical analysis of the apparent 
discrepancies between the Gospels and the theology of Saul of Tarsus.
	In searching out the sense of these new writings, I have had the benefit 
of extended conversations across the years with many friends and colleagues, 
especially Robert Michael Schapiro and Christina Maria Wesson. My long-term 
thanks are also due to Prof. William E. Kennick of Amherst College, for his 
example of the highest standards in philosophical theology. Much of the present 
edition was prepared while I was a guest in numerous Latin American seminaries, 
both Catholic and Protestant; for their fraternal hospitality I am profoundly 
grateful.
	These new Gospels are surely the most extraordinary discovery of our 
times--like a drink of light direct from the source: IChThUS EUChARISTW COI!

Paterson Brown, BA (Amherst), PhD (London)
Athens, All Saints 1998
crosby@fidnet.com

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

	1. Photographic editions of the complete papyrus manuscripts have been 
published by UNESCO in conjunction with the Egyptian Government: The Facsimile 
Edition of the Nag Hammadi Codices (Codex I & Codex II), Leiden: E.J. Brill, 
1977 & 1974 (The Gospel of Truth is in Codex I, Thomas and Philip in Codex II).
	2. The entire collection of some 45 titles (including a wide diversity of 
period religious writings) is available in a popularized edition: The Nag 
Hammadi Library in English (edited with introduction by James M. Robinson), San 
Francisco: Harper & Row, 3rd revised edition 1988.
	3. For the grammatical structure of the Coptic language, I have used: 
Introductory Coptic Grammar, (by J. Martin Plumley), London: Home & Van Thal, 
1948--this rare mimeographed sourcebook of the Sahidic dialect is available in 
photocopy from the Mt. Scopus Library of the Hebrew University, Jerusalem; see 
also #18, below.
	4. The indispensable standard lexicon is: A Coptic Dictionary (by Walter 
Ewing Crum), Oxford: The University Press, 1939. Note that this monumental work 
is alphabetized by consonants only. Also, Coptic is an agglutinative language, 
utilizing a complex system of morphological and syntactical prefixes and 
suffixes which must be subtracted in order to identify the root term (e.g., 
TNNANNHUEBOL -> TN-NA-NNHU-EBOL ['we-shall-come-forth']--thus on p.220b of 
Crum). 
	5. The Coptic text of Thomas together with line-by-line English, French, 
German and Dutch translations were first published in: The Gospel according to 
Thomas (edited by Antoine Guillaumont, Henri-Charles Puech, Gilles Quispel, 
Walter Till & Yassah 'Abd al-Masih), Leiden: E.J. Brill; New York: Harper & 
Brothers; London: Collins, 1959.
	6. The Gospel of Thomas WebPage (www.epix.net/~miser17/Thomas.html), with 
many links, is maintained by Stevan Davies.
	7. The current standard popular edition of Thomas, with Coptic text, 
English translation and notes: The Gospel of Thomas (edited and translated by 
Marvin Meyer), San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 1992.
	8. The prior Greek fragments of Thomas, which vary significantly from the 
Coptic version: New Sayings of Jesus and Fragment of a Lost Gospel from 
Oxyrhynchus (edited by Bernard Grenfell, Lucy Drexel & Arthur Hunt), Oxford 
University Press, London: Henry Frowde, 1904.
	10. A well-illustrated and most informative historical account and 
analysis: 'The Gospel of Thomas: Does It Contain Authentic Sayings of Jesus?' 
(by Helmut Koester & Stephen Patterson), Bible Review (tel. 800-221-4644, 
basedit@clark.net), April 1990.
	11. The standard scholarly edition of Thomas and Philip, with ancillary 
materials, critical Coptic text, English translation and fully indexed Coptic 
and Greek glossaries: Nag Hammadi Codex II (volume I, edited by Bentley Layton), 
Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1989. 
	12. The primary Spanish edition of Thomas and Philip, translated directly 
from the Coptic with introductory material, extensive bibliographies and 
annotations: Los Evangelios Apócrifos (edited and translated by Aurelio de 
Santos Otero), Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, 7th edition 1991.
	13. I based my initial translation of Philip on the amply annotated 
interlinear Coptic/German text, with fully indexed glossaries: Das Evangelium 
nach Philippos (edited and translated by Walter Till), Berlin: Walter De 
Gruyter, 1963.
	14. A superlative English edition of the Gospel of Truth, extensively 
annotated with an expansive introductory essay: The Gospel of Truth, A 
Valentinian Meditation on the Gospel (edited and translated by Kendrick Grobel), 
New York: Abingdon Press; London: Black, 1960.
	15. The standard scholarly edition of the Gospel of Truth, with 
introduction, Coptic text, English translation, copious notes and fully-indexed 
glossaries: Nag Hammadi Codex I (two volumes, edited by Harold W. Attridge), 
Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1985.
	16. The best Greek/English interlinear and lexicon of the New Testament 
canon, with super-linear textual variants and sub-linear ultraliteral 
translation: Concordant Greek Text and The Greek Elements (edited by Adolph 
Ernst Knoch), Santa Clarita CA 91350 USA: Concordant Publishing Concern 
(www.concordant.org; tel. 805-252-2112), 4th edition 1975 [a wonderful edition 
and textual analysis, hightly recommended].
	17. A work of extraordinary breadth and insight regarding the basic 
parameters of Biblical metaphysics, as contrasted with Greek and Western: Claude 
Tresmontant, A Study of Hebrew Thought, New York, Tournai, Paris, Rome: Desclee 
Company, 1960; see 'Angel and Image', below.
	18. The hypertext version of this edition and of the parallel Spanish 
translation is at: www.metalog.org.
	19. Coptic 'True-Type' fonts, a history of the Coptic language and a basic 
grammar of the Boharic dialect (similar to the Sahidic of our texts) online: 
www.stshenouda.com.
	20. Various editions of the Bible: http://bible.gospelcom.net.
	21. The magisterial Liddell-Scott-Jones Greek Lexicon is now available on-
line: www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/resolveform.

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'FIFTH GOSPEL' THROWS LIGHT ON SAYINGS OF JESUS

Darrell Turner
Religious News Service, New York
December 27, 1991 (#15709)

	(RNS) An ancient document composed of sayings of Jesus has generated a 
recent spate of scholarly articles, along with strongly held opinions that the 
document, known as the Gospel of Thomas, deserves a much wider audience. 
According to scholars, the 114 quotations in the Gospel of Thomas are as 
valuable as Matthew, Mark, Luke and John for gaining understanding of the man 
Christians worship as Messiah.
	In a recent telephone interview, Helmut Koester of Harvard Divinity 
School, the new president of the Society of Biblical Literature, said nearly all 
biblical scholars in the United States agree that Thomas is as authentic as the 
New Testament Gospels. In an article that appeared in Bible Review in April 
1990, Koester and his co-author Stephen J. Patterson wrote, 'the Gospel of 
Thomas must be given equal weight with the canonical Gospels' in any effort to 
reconstruct the beginnings of Christianity.
	Yet, despite excitement over the work for several decades, 'nobody's heard 
of it except the academic scholars,' says Paterson Brown. 'If the general public 
knew that there was a book around called Thomas--which I think 95 percent of the 
public doesn't know exists--there would be a volcanic eruption,' said Brown, a 
former professor of the philosophy of religion who has written on Thomas for the 
journal Novum Testamentum.
	Thomas was discovered in 1945 in Egypt along with more than 50 other 
ancient Christian, Jewish and pagan works that make up a collection known as the 
Nag Hammadi Library. The documents, which date from the 4th century BC to the 
4th century AD, were written in Coptic, the language of early Egyptian 
Christians. The library, including Thomas, has been translated into English and 
published in several scholarly editions. But many scholars feel that Thomas 
should be made available in a separate volume. 'I think it's urgent that Thomas 
be published alone in a paperback edition,' said Brown. 
	Unlike the other Nag Hammadi volumes, Thomas contains teachings of Jesus, 
which scholars believe would be particularly valuable for Christian readers. 
Many students of the Gospel of Thomas believe that its material is potentially 
of more interest to the general public than the much-ballyhooed Dead Sea 
Scrolls--except that it is not as well known.
	Many quotations recorded in Thomas are similar to those in the Gospels 
that make up what is known as the New Testament canon--the writings of the early 
church that eventually came to be accepted as authentic and authoritative texts 
for all Christians. For example, Saying 90 in Thomas, 'Come unto me, for my yoke 
is easy and my lordship is mild, and you will find repose for yourselves,' bears 
strong resemblance to a familiar passage in Matthew 11:28-30.

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RECENT SCHOLARLY COMMENTS

Joachim Jeremias, The Parables of Jesus (1963 edition, II.3): Embellishment: In 
many cases parables [in the synoptics] have undergone elaboration, and ... the 
simpler version [of Thomas] represents the original.

Helmut Koester, Introduction to 'The Gospel of Thomas', in James M. Robinson 
(ed.), The Nag Hammadi Library in English (Bibliography #2, above): If one 
considers the form and wording of the individual sayings in comparison with the 
form in which they are preserved in the New Testament, The Gospel of Thomas 
almost always appears to have preserved a more original form of the traditional 
saying. In its literary genre, The Gospel of Thomas is more akin to one of the 
sources of the canonical gospels, namely the so-called Synoptic Sayings Source 
(often called 'Q' from the German Quelle, 'source'), which was used by both 
Matthew and Luke.... In its most original form, [Thomas] may well date from the 
first century.

------------, Ancient Christian Gospels (London: SCM Press; Philadelphia: 
Trinity Press International, 1990): What is put to the test is the 'early 
Catholic' or 'orthodox' tradition, which asserts the monopoly of the canonical 
gospel tradition.... Only dogmatic prejudice can assert that the canonical 
writings have an exclusive claim to apostolic origin and thus to historical 
priority.... The parables of the Gospel of Thomas are to be read as stories in 
their own right, not as artificial expressions of some hidden Gnostic truth.

James M. Robinson (General Editor for the Nag Hammadi Codices), Introduction to 
The Nag Hammadi Library in English (Bibliography #2, above): The focus of this 
library has much in common with primitive Christianity, with eastern religion 
and with 'holy men' (and women) of all times, as well as with the more secular 
equivalents of today, such as the counter-culture movements coming from the 
1960s. Disinterest in the goods of a consumer society, withdrawal into communes 
of the like-minded away from the bustle and clutter of big-city distraction, 
non-involvement in the compromises of political process, sharing an in-group's 
knowledge both of the disaster-course of the culture and of an ideal, radical 
alternative not commonly known--all this in modern garb is the real challenge 
rooted in such materials as the Nag Hammadi library.... Primitive Christianity 
was itself a radical movement. Jesus called for a full reversal of values, 
advocating the end of the world as we have known it and its replacement by a 
quite new, utopian kind of life in which the ideal world would be real. He took 
a stand quite independent of the authorities of his day ··· and did not last 
very long before they eliminated him. Yet his followers reaffirmed his stand--
for them he came to personify the ultimate goal.... Just as the Dead Sea Scrolls 
[at Qumran] were put in jars for safekeeping and hidden at the time of the 
approach of the Roman Tenth Legion, the burial [three centuries later] of the 
Nag Hammadi library in a jar may have been precipitated by the approach of Roman 
authorities, who had by then become Christian.

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THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO THOMAS

	These are the secret sayingsº which the living Yeshúaº has spoken and 
Didymos Judas Thomasº inscribed. (Lk 8:10)

1. And he <says>*: Whoever finds the interpretation of these sayings shall not 
taste death. (Isa 25:8, Lk 9:27, Jn 8:51; this is apparently an introductory 
logion quoting Thomas himself, included [like Jn 21:24] by his own disciples, 
since it speaks of the following as a collection of sayings; *thruout the Greek 
fragments of Thomas, 'x says' is in the present tense)

2. Yeshúa says: Let him who seeks not cease seeking until he finds, and when he 
finds he shall be troubled, and when he has been troubled he shall marvel and he 
shall reign over the totalityº <and find repose>. (Dan 7:27, Lk 1:29, Rev/Ap 
1:6, 3:21, 5:10, 20:4)

3. Yeshúa says: If those who would lead you, say to you: Behold, the Kingdom is 
in the skyº!, then the birds of the sky would precede you. If they say to you: 
It is in the sea!, then the fish <of the sea> would precede you. But the Kingdom 
<of God> is within you and it is without you. <Those who come to know themselves 
shall find it, and when you come to know yourselves> then you shall know that 
you are the Sons of the Living Father. Yet if you do not know yourselves then 
you are impoverished and you are poverty. (Dt 30:11-14, Mal 2:10, Lk 17:21, 
Plato's Philebus 48c, 63c)

4. Yeshúa says: The person old in days will not hesitate to ask a little child 
of seven days concerning the place of life--and he shall live. For many who are 
first shall become last, <and the last first>. And they shall become a single 
unity. (Gen 2:2-3, 17:12, Mt 11:25-26, Lk 10:21)

5. Yeshúa says: Recognize what is in front of thy face, and what is hidden from 
thee shall be revealed to thee. For there is nothing concealed which shall not 
be revealed, <and nothing buried that shall not be raised>.

6. His Disciples ask him,* they say to him: How do thou want us to fast, and how 
shall we pray? And how shall we give alms, and what diet shall we maintain? | 
Yeshúa says: Do not lie, and do not practice what you hate--for everything is 
manifest before the face of the sky. For there is nothing concealed that shall 
not be revealed, and there is nothing covered that shall remain without being 
exposed. (*asyndeton, or omission of conjunctions, characterizing Semitic 
languages but not Greek or Coptic--thus signaling an underlying Semitic source-
text)

7. Yeshúa says: Blestº be the lion which the human eats--and the lion shall 
become human. And accursed be the human which the lion eats--and the [human] 
shall become [lion].

8. And he says: The [Kingdom] is like a wise fisherman who cast his net into the 
sea. He drew it up from the sea full of small fish. Among them he found a large 
good fish. That wise fisherman, he threw all the small fish back into the sea,* 
he chose the large fish without hesitation. Whoever has ears to hear, let him 
hear! (*asyndeton)

9. Yeshúa says: Behold, the sower came forth--he filled his hand, he threw. Some 
indeed fell upon the road--the birds came, they gathered them. Others fell on 
the bedrock--and they did not take root down into the soil, and did not sprout 
grain skyward. And others fell among the thorns--they choked the seed, and the 
worm ate them. And others fell upon the good earth--and it produced good fruit 
up toward the sky, it bore 60-fold and 120-fold. (multiple asyndeta; Mt 13:18-
23)

10. Yeshúa says: I have cast fire upon the worldº--and behold, I guard it until 
it is ablaze. (Lk 12:49)

11. Yeshúa says: This sky shall pass away, and the one above it shall pass away. 
And the dead are not alive, and the living shall not die. In the days when you 
consumed the dead, you transformed it to life--when you come into the Light, 
what will you do? On the day when you were together, you became separated--yet 
when you have become separated, what will you do? (Mt 24:35)

12. The Disciples say to Yeshúa: We know that thou shall go away from us. Who is 
it that shall be Rabbiº over us? | Yeshúa says to them: In the place that you 
have come, you shall go to Jacob the Righteousº, for whose sake the sky and 
earth come to be. (apparently a post-resurrection dialog; vide Jn 7:5 & Ac 1:14) 

13. Yeshúa says to his Disciples: Make a comparison to me, and tell me whom I 
resemble. | Simon Peterº 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. | Yeshúa 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 Yeshúa 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, Odes 
of Solomon 11:6-9)

14. Yeshúa says to them: If you fast, you shall beget transgression for 
yourselves. And if you pray, you shall be condemned. And if you give alms, you 
shall cause evil to your spirits. And when you go into any land to sojourn in 
the regions, if they receive you then eat what they set before you and heal the 
sick among them. For what goes into your mouth will not defile you--but rather 
what comes out of your mouth, that is what will defile you. (Isa 58:6-9, Mt 6:6 
+ Jn 18:1, Th 6, 95, 104, Ph 74)

15. Yeshúa says: When you see him who was not born of woman, prostrate 
yourselves upon your faces and worship him--he is your Father. (Th 101)

16. Yeshúa says: People perhaps think that I have come to cast peace upon the 
world, and they do not know that I have come to cast divisions upon the earth--
fire, sword, war. For there shall be five in a house--three shall be against two 
and two against three, the father against the son and the son against the 
father. And they shall stand as solitaries.

17. Yeshúa says: I shall give to you what eye has not seen and what ear has not 
heard and what hand has not touched and what has not arisen in the mind of 
mankind. (Isa 64:4)

18. The Disciples say to Yeshúa: Tell us how our end shall be. | Yeshúa says: 
Have you then discovered the originº, so that you inquire about the end? For at 
the place where the origin is, there shall be the end. Blest be he who shall 
stand at the origin--and he shall know the end, and he shall not taste death. 

19. Yeshúa says: Blest be he who was before he came into being. If you become 
Disciples to me and heed my sayings, these stones shall minister to you. For you 
have five treesº in paradise, which in summer are unmoved and in winter their 
leaves do not fall--whoever is acquainted with them shall not taste death. 

20. The Disciples say to Yeshúa: Tell us what the Kingdom of the Heavensº is 
like. | He says to them: It resembles a mustard seed, smaller than all (other) 
seeds--yet when it falls on the tilled earth, it produces a great plant and 
becomes shelter for the birds of the sky.

21. Mariamº says to Yeshúa: Whom are thy Disciples like? | He says: They are 
like little children who are sojourning in a field which is not theirs. When the 
owners of the field come, they will say: Leave our field to us! They take off 
their clothing in front of them in order to yield it to them and to give back 
their field to them. Therefore I say, if the householder ascertains that the 
thief is coming, he will be alert before he arrives and will not allow him to 
dig thru into the house of his domain to carry away his belongings. Yet you, 
beware of the systemº--gird up your loins with great strength lest the bandits 
find a way to reach you, for they will find the advantage which you anticipate. 
Let there be among you a person of awareness--when the fruit ripened, he came 
quickly with his sickle in his hand,* he reaped it. Whoever has ears to hear, 
let him hear! (*asyndeton)

22. Yeshúa sees little children who are being suckled. He says to his Disciples: 
These little children who are being suckled are like those who enter the 
Kingdom. | They say to him: Shall we thus by becoming little children enter the 
Kingdom? | Yeshúa says to them: When you make the two one, and you make the 
inside as the outside and the outside as the inside and the above as the below, 
and if you establish the male with the female as a single unity so that the man 
will not be masculine and the woman not be feminine, when you establish [an eye] 
in the place of an eye and a hand in the place of a hand and a foot in the place 
of a foot and an imageº in the place of an image--then shall you enter [the 
Kingdom].

23. Yeshúa says: I shall choose you, one from a thousand and two from ten 
thousand--and they shall stand as a single unity. (Dt 32:30, Ecc 7:28, Jer 3:14)

24. His Disciples say: Explain thy place to us, for it is compulsory for us to 
seek it. | He says to them: Whoever has ears, let him hear! Within a Person of 
Light there is Light, and he illumines the entire world. When he does not shine, 
there is darkness. (Mt 5:14-16, Jn 12:36)

25. Yeshúa says: Love thy Brother as thy soul, protect him as the pupil of thine 
eye. (asyndeton; Dt 32:10, I-Sam 18:1, Ps 17:8, Jn 13:34-35)

26. Yeshúa says: The mote which is in thy Brother's eye thou see--but the plank 
that is in thine own eye thou see not. When thou cast the plank out of thine own 
eye, then shall thou see clearly to cast the mote out of thy Brother's eye.

27. (Yeshúa says:) Unless you fast from the system, you shall not find the 
Kingdom <of God>. Unless you keep the (entire) week as Sabbathº, you shall not 
behold the Father. (Mk 1:13, Jn 5:19!; see Paterson Brown, Novum Testamentum 
1992)

28. Yeshúa says: I stood in the midst of the world, and incarnateº I was 
manifest to them.* I found them all drunk, I found none among them athirst. And 
my soul was grieved for the sons of men, for they are blind in their hearts and 
do not see that empty they have come into the world and that empty they are 
destined to come forth again from the world. (Ecc 6:15) However, now they are 
drunk--when they have shaken off their wine, then shall they rethinkº. (*re 
'Gnosticism', Jn 1:14--this appears to be a post-resurrection saying)

29. Yeshúa says: If the flesh has come into being because of spirit, it is a 
marvel--yet if spirit because of the body, it would be a marvel among marvels. 
But I marvel at this, how this great wealth has inhabited this poverty.

30. Yeshúa says: Where there are three gods, they are <godless. Where there is 
only one, I say that> I myself am with him. <Raise the stone and there you shall 
find me, cleave the wood and there am I.> (cp. The Letter of Aristeas 15-16; 
cleaving the wood could be seen as a metaphor for the crucifixion, removing the 
stone for the resurrection)

31. Yeshúa says: No oracleº is accepted in his own village, no physician heals 
those who know him. (asyndeton)

32. Yeshúa says: A city being built upon a high mountain and fortified cannot 
fall nor can it be hidden.

33. Yeshúa says: What thou shall hear in thy ear proclaim to other ears from 
your rooftops. For no one kindles a lamp and sets it under a bushel-basket nor 
puts it in a hidden place, but rather it is placed upon the lampstand so that 
everyone who comes in and goes out will see its light.

34. Yeshúa says: If a blind person leads a blind person, both together fall into 
a pit.

35. Yeshúa says: It is impossible for anyone to enter the house of the strong to 
take it by force, unless he binds his hands--then he will ransack his house. 
(Isa 49:24-25)

36. Yeshúa says: Be not anxious in the morning about the evening or in the 
evening about the morning, <either for your [food] that you shall eat or for 
[your clothing] that you shall wear. You are much superior to the [windflowers] 
which neither comb (wool) nor [spin] (thread). Having one garment what do you 
[lack]? Or who can increase your stature? He himself shall give to you your 
garment.>

37. His Disciples say: When will thou be revealed to us, and when shall we 
behold thee? | Yeshúa says: When you take off your clothing without being 
ashamed, and take your clothes and place them under your feet to tread on them 
as the little children do--then [shall you behold] the Son of the Living-One, 
and you shall not fear. (Gen 2:25, 3:7; this appears to be a post-resurrection 
dialog)

38. Yeshúa says: Many times have you yearned to hear these sayings which I speak 
to you, and you have no one else from whom to hear them. There will be days when 
you will seek me but you shall not find me. (Prov 1:28, Lk 17:22)

39. Yeshúa says: The clergyº and the theologiansº have received the keys of 
knowledge, but they have hidden them. They did not enter, nor did they permit 
those to enter who wished to. Yet you--become astute as serpents and pure as 
doves.

40. Yeshúa says: A vine has been planted without the Father, and as it is not 
viable it shall be pulled up by its roots and destroyed. (Mt 15:13)

41. Yeshúa says: Whoever has in his hand, to him shall (more) be given. And 
whoever does not have, from him shall be taken even the trifle which he has. (Mt 
13:12, Lk 12:48)

42. Yeshúa says: Become transientsº (passers-by). (Mt 10:1-23, 28:19-20, Jn 
16:28)

43. His Disciples say to him: Who are thou, that thou say these things to us? | 
(Yeshúa says to them:) From what I say to you, you do not recognize who I be, 
but rather you have become as the Jews--for they love the tree but hate its 
fruit, and they love the fruit but hate the tree. (Mt 12:33)

44. Yeshúa says: Whoever vilifies the Father, it shall be forgiven him. And 
whoever vilifies the Son, it shall be forgiven him. Yet whoever vilifies the 
Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him--neither on earth nor in heaven.

45. Yeshúa says: They do not harvest grapes from thorns, nor do they gather figs 
from thistles--for they give no fruit. A good person brings forth goodness out 
of his treasure. A bad person brings forth wickednessº out of his evil treasure 
which is in his heart, and he speaks oppressively--for out of the abundance of 
the heart he brings forth wickedness. (I-Sam 24:13)

46. Yeshúa says: From Adamº until John the Baptistº there is among those born of 
women none more exalted than John the Baptist--so that his eyes shall not be 
broken. Yet I have said that whoever among you becomes childlike shall know the 
Kingdom, and he shall become more exalted than John. (Lk 7:28, Th 15)

47. Yeshúa says: It is impossible for a person to mount two horses or to stretch 
two bows, and it is impossible for a slave to serve two masters--otherwise he 
will honor the one and offend the other. No person drinks vintageº wine and 
immediately desires to drink new wine, and they do not put new (wine) into old 
wineskins lest they burst, and they do not put vintage wine into new wineskins 
lest it sour. They do not sew an old patch on a new garment because there would 
come a split.

48. Yeshúa says: If two make peace with each other in this one house, they shall 
say to the mountain: Be moved!--and it shall be moved.

49. Yeshúa says: Blest be the solitary and chosen--for you shall find the 
Kingdom. You have come from it, and unto it you shall return. (Jn 16:28)

50. Yeshúa says: If they say to you: 'From whence do you come?', say to them: 
'We have come from the Light, the place where the Light has originated thru 
himself--he stood and he revealed himself in their imagery.' If they say to you: 
'Who are you?', say: 'We are his Sons and we are the chosen of the Living 
Father.' If they ask you: 'What is the sign of your Father in you?', say to 
them: 'It is movement with repose.' (Lk 16:8, Jn 12:36)

51. His Disciples say to him: When will the repose of the dead occur, and when 
will the new world come? | He says to them: That which you look for has already 
come, but you do not recognize it.

52. His Disciples say to him: Twenty-four prophetsº proclaimed in Israel, and 
they all spoke within thee. | He says to them: You have ignored the Living-One 
who is facing you, and you have spoken about the dead.

53. His Disciples say to him: Is circumcision beneficial or not? | He says to 
them: If it were beneficial, their father would beget them circumcised from 
their mother. But the true spiritual circumcision has become entirely 
beneficial.

54. Yeshúa says: Blest be the poor, for the Kingdom of the Skies is yours.

55. Yeshúa says: Whoever does not hate his father and his mother will not be 
able to become a Disciple to me. And whoever does not hate his brothers and his 
sisters and does not take up his own cross in my way, will not become worthy of 
me. (Lk 14:26-27)

56. Yeshúa says: Whoever has known the system has found a corpse--and whoever 
has found a corpse, of him the system is not worthy. 

57. Yeshúa says: The Kingdom of the Father is like a person who has [good] seed. 
His enemy came by night,* he sowed a weed among the good seed. The man did not 
permit them to pull up the weed. He says to them: Lest perhaps you go forth 
saying: 'We shall pull up the weed'--and you pull up the wheat along with it. 
For on the day of harvest the weeds will appear--they pull them and burn them. 
(*asyndeton; II-Pt 3:15-17?!)

58. Yeshúa says: Blest be the person who has suffered--he has found the life. 
(asyndeton; Mt 5:10-12, Jas 1:12, I-Pt 3:14)

59. Yeshúa says: Behold the Living-One while you are alive, lest you die and 
seek to perceive him and be unable to see. 

60. (They see) a Samaritanº carrying a lamb, entering Judea. Yeshúa says to 
them: Why does he (take) the lamb with him? | They say to him: So that he may 
kill it and eat it. | He says to them: While it is alive he will not eat it, but 
only after he kills it and it becomes a corpse. | They say: Otherwise he will 
not be able to do it. | He says to them: You yourselves--seek a place for 
yourselves in repose, lest you become corpses and be eaten.

61a. Yeshúa says: Two will rest on a bed--the one shall die, the other shall 
live. (asyndeton; Lk 17:34)

61b. Salomeº says: Who are thou, man? As if (sent) from someone, thou laid upon 
my bedº and thou ate from my table. | Yeshúa says to her: I•Am he who is from 
equality. To me have been given from the things of my Father. | (Salome says:) 
I'm thy Disciple.* | (Yeshúa says to her:) Thus I say that whenever someone 
equalizes he shall be filled with light, yet whenever he divides he shall be 
filled with darkness. (*'thy Disciple': the Coptic indicates a masculine 
possessive of a feminine noun; see Plumley, Bibliography #3, §50, or the online 
grammar Bibliography #18, lesson 5.1)

62. Yeshúa says: I tell my mysteries to those [who are worthy of] my mysteries. 
What thy right (hand) shall do, let not thy left (hand) ascertain what it does. 
(Mk 4:10-12)

63. Yeshúa says: There was a wealthy person who possessed much money, and he 
said: I shall utilize my money so that I may sow and reap and replant, to fill 
my storehouses with fruit so that I lack nothing. This is what he thought in his 
heart--and that night he died. Whoever has ears, let him hear!

64a. Yeshúa says: A person had houseguests, and when he had prepared the banquet 
he sent his slave to invite the guests. He went to the first, he says to him: My 
master invites thee. He replied: I have some business with some merchants, they 
are coming to me in the evening, I shall go to place my orders with them--I beg 
to be excused from the banquet. He went to another, he says to him: My master 
has invited thee. He replied to him: I have bought a house and they require me 
for a day, I shall have no leisure time. He came to another, he says to him: My 
master invites thee. He replied to him: My comrade is to be married and I must 
arrange a feast, I shall not be able to come--I beg to be excused from the 
banquet. He went to another, he says to him: My master invites thee. He replied 
to him: I have bought a villa, I go to receive the rent, I shall not be able to 
come--I beg to be excused. The slave came, he said to his master: Those whom 
thou have invited to the banquet have excused themselves. The master said to his 
slave: Go out to the roads, bring those whom thou shall find so that they may 
feast. (multiple asyndeta)

64b. (And he says:) Tradesmen and merchants shall not enter the places of my 
Father. (Ezek 27 28, Zech 14:21, Jn 2:13-16, Rev/Ap 18:11-20)

65. He says: A kindº person had a vineyard. He gave it out to tenants so that 
they would work it and he would receive its fruit from them. He sent his slave 
so that the tenants would give to him the fruit of the vineyard. They seized his 
slave, they beat him--a little longer and they would have killed him. The slave 
went, he told it to his master. His master said: Perhaps [they] did not 
recognize [him]. He sent another slave--the tenants beat him as well. Then the 
owner sent his son. He said: Perhaps they will respect my son. Since those 
tenants knew that he was the heir of the vineyard, they seized him, they killed 
him. Whoever has ears, let him hear! (multiple asyndeta)

66. Yeshúa says: Show me the stone which the builders have rejected--it is the 
cornerstone. (Isa 28:16)

67. Yeshúa says: Whoever knows everything, but fails (to know) himself, lacks 
everything. (Th 3)

68. Yeshúa says: Blest be you when you are hated and persecuted and find no 
place there where you have been persecuted.

69a. Yeshúa says: Blest be those who have been persecuted in their heart--these 
are they who have known the Father in truth.

69b. (Yeshúa says:) Blest be the hungry, for the stomach of him who desires 
shall be filled. 

70. Yeshúa says: When you bring forth that which is within you, this that you 
have shall save you. If you do not have that within you, this which you do not 
have within you will kill you. (Mt 13:52)

71. Yeshúa says: I shall destroy [this] house, and no one will be able to 
[re]build it.

72. [Someone says] to him: Tell my brothers to divide the possessions of my 
father with me. | He says to him: Oh man, who made me a divider? | He turned to 
his Disciples,* he says to them: I'm not a divider, am I? (*asyndeton)

73. Yeshúa says: The harvest is indeed plentiful, but the workers are few. Yet 
beseech the Lord that he send workers into the harvest.

74. He says: Lord, there are many around the reservoir, yet no one in the 
reservoir.

75. Yeshúa says: There are many standing at the door, but the solitary are those 
who shall enter the Bridal-Chamberº. 

76. Yeshúa says: The Kingdom of the Father is like a merchant possessing a 
fortune, who found a pearl. That merchant was shrewd--he sold the fortune, he 
bought the one pearl for himself. You yourselves, seek for [the treasure of his 
face], which perishes not, which endures--the place where no moth comes near to 
devour nor worm ravages. (multiple asyndeta; Ps 11:7, 17:15)

77. Yeshúa says: I•Am the light who is above them all, I•Am the Allº. All came 
forth from me and all return to me. Cleave wood,* there am I. Lift up the stone 
and there you shall find me. (*asyndeton; Jn 8:12)

78. Yeshúa says: Why did you come out to the wilderness--to see a reed shaken by 
the wind? And to see a person dressed in plush garments? [Behold, your] rulers 
and your dignitaries are those who are clad in plush garments, and they shall 
not be able to recognize the truth.

79. A woman from the multitude says to him: Blest be the womb which bore thee, 
and the breasts which nursed thee! | He says to her: Blest be those who have 
heard the meaning of the Father and have kept it in truth. For there shall be 
days when you will say: Blest be the womb which has not conceived and the 
breasts which have not nursed. (Lk 1:42)

80. Yeshúa says: Whoever has known the system has found the body--and whoever 
has found the body, of him the system is not worthy. (Th 56)

81. Yeshúa says: Let whoever is enriched be made sovereign, and let whoever has 
power renounce it.

82. Yeshúa says: Whoever is close to me is close to the fire, and whoever is far 
from me is far from the Kingdom.

83. Yeshúa says: The images are manifest to mankind, and the Light which is 
within them is hidden. (Th 19) He shall reveal himself in the imagery of the 
Light of the Father--[yet] his image is concealed by his Light.

84. Yeshúa says: When you see your reflection, you rejoice. Yet when you 
perceive your images which come into being in front of you--which neither die 
nor disguise--to what extent will they depend upon you? (this is the 
epistemological hinge of the entire text; Ps 139:16, Jn 5:19, Th 19!)

85. Yeshúa says: Adam came into existence from a great power and a great wealth, 
and yet he did not become worthy of you. For if he had been worthy, he would not 
have tasted death.

86. Yeshúa says: [The foxes have their dens] and the birds have their nests, yet 
the Son of Mankind has no place to lay his head for rest.

87. Yeshúa says: Wretched be the body which depends upon (another) body, and 
wretched be the soul which depends upon their being together.

88. Yeshúa says: The angelsº and the oracles shall come to you, and they shall 
bestow upon you what is yours. And you yourselves, give to them what is in your 
hands, and say among yourselves: On what day will they come to receive what is 
theirs?

89. Yeshúa says: Why do you wash the outside of the chalice? Do you not mind 
that He who creates the inside is also he who creates the outside? (Lk 11:39-41)

90. Yeshúa says: Come unto me, for my yogaº is naturalº and my lordship is 
gentle--and you shall find repose for yourselves.

91. They say to him: Tell us who thou are, so that we may believe in thee. | He 
says to them: You examine the face of the sky and of the earth--yet you do not 
recognize Him who is facing you, and you do not know to inquire of Him at this 
moment. (Th 5, 52, 76, 84)

92. Yeshúa says: Seek and you shall find. But those things which you asked me in 
those days, I did not tell you then. Now I wish to tell them, and you do not 
inquire about them.

93. (Yeshúa says:) Give not what is holy to the dogs, lest they throw it on the 
dungheap. Cast not the pearls to the swine, lest they cause it to become [...].

94. Yeshúa [says:] Whoever seeks shall find. [And whoever knocks,] it shall be 
opened to him.

95. [Yeshúa says:] If you have copper-coins,* do not lend at interest--but 
rather give it to those from whom you will not be repaid. (Lk 6:30-36; *here in 
the bound codex there is a single sheet blank on both sides)

96. Yeshúa says: The Kingdom of the Father is like a woman who has taken a 
little yeast and has hidden it in dough--she produced large loaves of it. 
Whoever has ears, let him hear!

97. Yeshúa says: The Kingdom of the [Father] is like a woman who was carrying a 
jar full of grain. While she was walking on a distant road, the handle of the 
jar broke, the grain streamed out behind her onto the road. She did not know it, 
she had noticed no accident. When she arrived in her house, she set the jar 
down--she found it empty. (multiple asyndeta)

98. Yeshúa says: The Kingdom of the Father is like a person who wishes to slay a 
prominent man. He drew forth his sword in his house,* he thrust it thru the wall 
in order to ascertain whether his hand would prevail. Then he slew the prominent 
man. (*asyndeton)

99. His Disciples say to him: Thy brothers-and-sisters and thy mother are 
standing outside. | He says to them: Those here who practice the desires of my 
Father--these are my Brothers-and-Sisters and my Mother. It is they who shall 
enter the Kingdom of my Father. (Th 15)

100. They show Yeshúa a gold coin, and they say to him: The agents of Caesar 
extort tribute from us. | He says to them: Give the things of Caesar to Caesar, 
give the things of God to God, and give to me what is mine. (Rev/Ap 13:18 <- I-
Ki 10:14?!--an extraordinary gematria)

101. (Yeshúa says:) Whoever does not hate his father and his mother in my way 
shall not be able to become a Disciple to me. And whoever does [not] love his 
[Father] and his Mother in my way shall not be able to become a Disciple to me. 
For my mother [boreº me], yet [my] true [Mother] gave me the life. (Jn 2:4, Th 
15)

102. Yeshúa says: Woe unto them, the clergy--for they are like a dog sleeping in 
the manger of oxen. For neither does he eat, nor does he allow the oxen to eat. 
(The Fables of Aesopº)

103. Yeshúa says: Blest be the person who knows in which part the bandits may 
invade, so that he shall arise and collect his [belongings] and gird up his 
loins before they enter. (Mt 24:43)

104. They say [to him:] Come, let us pray today and let us fast. | Yeshúa says: 
Which then is the transgression that I have committed, or in what have I been 
vanquished? But when the Bridegroom comes forth from the Bridal-Chamber, then 
let them fast and let them pray. (Mk 2:19-20, Th 14)

105. Yeshúa says: Whoever acknowledges father and mother, shall be called the 
son of a harlot. (Mt 23:8-9)

106. Yeshúa says: When you make the two one, you shall become Sons of Mankind--
and when you say to the mountain: Be moved!, it shall be moved. (Th 22)

107. Yeshúa says: The Kingdom is like a shepherd who has 100 sheep. One of them 
went astray, which was the largest. He left the 99, he sought for the one until 
he found it. Having wearied himself, he said to that sheep: I desire thee more 
than 99. (Ezek 34:15-16)

108. Yeshúa says: Whoever drinks from my mouth shall become like me. I myself 
shall become him, and the secrets shall be revealed unto him. (Lk 6:40, Jn 4:7-
15, 7:37)

109. Yeshúa says: The Kingdom is like a person who has a treasure hidden in his 
field without knowing it. And after he died, he bequeathed it to his [son. The] 
son did not know about it, he accepted that field, he sold it. And he came who 
purchased it--he plowed it, [he found] the treasure. He began to lend money at 
interest to whomever he wishes. (multiple asyndeta; Mt 13:44)

110. Yeshúa says: Whoever has found the system and been enriched, let him 
renounce the system. (Th 81)

111. Yeshúa says: The sky and the earth shall be rolled up in your presence. And 
he who lives from within the Living-One shall see neither death [nor fear]--for 
Yeshúa says: Whoever finds himself, of him the world is not worthy. (Isa 34:4, 
Lk 21:33, Rev/Ap 6:14)

112. Yeshúa says: Woe to the flesh which depends upon the soul, woe to the soul 
which depends upon the flesh. (asyndeton; Th 87)

113. His Disciples say to him: When will the Kingdom come? | (Yeshúa says:) It 
shall not come by expectation. They will not say: Behold here! or: Behold there! 
But the Kingdom of the Father is spread upon the earth, and humans do not 
perceive it. (Lk 17:20-21)

114. Simon Peter says to them: Let Mariam depart from among us, for women are 
not worthy of the life. | Yeshúa says: Behold, I shall inspireº her so that I 
make her male, in order that she herself shall become a living spirit like you 
males. For every female who becomes male shall enter the Kingdom of the Heavens. 
(Gen 3:16, Th 22)

The Gospel according to Thomas

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

NOTES TO THOMAS

	Coptic was the final stage of the classical Egyptian language, evolving 
after the invasion of Alexander the Great (332 BC) and subsequently supplanted 
by Arabic following the Muslim conquest (640 AD). It has always been the 
liturgical language of the Egyptian Church; moreover, the ancient Coptic 
versions of the Old and New Testaments are of great importance in textual 
Biblical studies. Utilizing many Greek loan words, Coptic also adopted the Greek 
alphabet (with C for sigma, and W for omega), adding these letters: $ (shai), £ 
(fai), % (hori), ¥ (janja), 6 (gima), and † (ti).

Adam (46,85): Hebrew (blood-red, clay)--the original human and/or generic 
mankind

Aesop (102): crippled Greek slave who flourished in the 6th-century BC and was 
executed at Delphi for 'impiety', whose Fables were well-known thruout the 
ancient world; the only non-Israelite other than the Delphic Oracle ('know 
thyself': Th 3) whom Christ is known to have quoted, as also in Lk 4:23 (moral 
from 'The Quack Frog'), Mt 7:15 ('The Wolf in Sheep's Clothing') and various 
other allusions

Bear (101): TA.MAAU GAR NTA.C.[MICE MMO.I EB]OL, 'my-mother for did-she[-bear 
accusative-me for]th' (vide Crum, Bibliography #4, 184b; also Plumley, 
Bibliography #3, §202 re II-Perfect tense in subordinate clauses)

Bed (61b, as notably also 61a): see Crum (Bibliography #4, above), 408b & 815a; 
the Coptic text here is: A.K.TELO (did-thou[masc]-lay) E¥M (upon) PA.6LO6 (my-
bed)--this last term emphatically cannot mean 'bench' or 'sofa' or 'dining-
couch' 

Blest (7,18,19,49,54,58,68,69a,69b,79,103): Greek MAKARIOS; this Greek word 
means divine, rather than merely human, beatitude (Mt 5:3)

Bridal-Chamber (75,104): Coptic MA N.$ELEET (place of-bride) = Greek NUMFWN = 
Hebrew KHEDER; the bedroom where the marriage is consummated (Ps 19:5, S-of-S 
1:4, Jn 3:29!, Mt 9:15)--see Ph 65, 71, 72, 73, 82, 94, 101, 108, 131, 143

Clergy (39,102): Hebrew 'Pharisee' (separated); religious leaders, teachers, 
indoctrinators (remember Mt 23)

Image/Imagery (22,50,83,84): Greek EIKON = Hebrew TSELEM (Gen 1:26); sensory 
perceptions and/or mental images, the five senses (Th 19) together with memory 
and the imagination; see 'Angel and Image', below

Incarnate (28): Coptic %N CARX (in flesh--intentionally utilizing the Greek term 
from Jn 1:14); see Recognition in Ph Notes re 'Gnosticism'

Inspire (114): Coptic COK; to blow as the wind or to flow as water, hence to 
draw or attract

Jacob the Righteous (12): Hebrew (heeler, supplanter; Gen 25:26) = Greek 
'James'; Christ's human brother (Mk 6:3, Ac 12:17, Epistle of James)

John the Baptist (46,78): John = Hebrew (Yah[weh] is merciful); the last Hebrew 
prophet and the Messianic precursor (Lk 1, 3, 7 etc.), see Oracle, Ph 73, 81, 
133, Baptism in Ph Notes, Logia in Tr Notes

Mariam (21,114): from Hebrew MROM (exalted; Ex 15:20); five females named Mariam 
appear in the Gospels: the Virgin, Mariam Magdalene, Mariam of Bethany, Mariam 
of Cleopas, and Mariam the Lord's human sister (Mc 6:3, Ph 36); Jn 20:16 gives a 
transliteration of this (Semitic) name into Greek letters: MARIAM

Matthew (13): Hebrew MATTAN-YAH (gift of Yah[weh]); the Apostle/Evangelist, also 
named 'Levi of Alphaeus' (see Levi in Ph Notes, Mk 2:14), brother of the Apostle 
Jacob of Alphaeus; Mt 10:3 etc.

Oracle/Prophet (31,52,88): Greek PROFHTHS = Hebrew NABI; a divine spokesperson, 
not merely predictive; note that there are 24 books in the Hebrew canon of the 
OT, and also 24 Prophets including John the Baptist (see IV-Ezra 14:45, Rev/Ap 
4:4)

Origin (18): Greek ARChH; term from the pre-Socratic Greek philosophers, meaning 
not a temporal beginning but rather the primal source or basic substance 
underlying reality (thus in Gen 1:1 [Septuagint/LXX], Mk 1:1, Jn 1:1)

Philosopher (13): Greek FILOSOFOS (fond of wisdom); this word (coined by the 
pre-Socratic Pythagoras) has no Hebrew/Aramaic parallel, and thus Matthew 
himself must have used the Greek term

Rabbi (12): Hebrew (my great) = Coptic NO6 (great); a spiritual authority

Rethink (28): Greek METANOEW: reconsider, be wholeminded (Mt 3:2 etc.); the 
initial message of both John the Baptist and Christ; this important term 
'metanoia' (with-mind) contrasts with 'paranoia' (beside-mind)--it does not 
signify a mere feeling of remorse, which is METAMELOS (see Metanoia in Tr Notes)

Sabbath (27): Hebrew SHABAT (repose); the (7th) day of rest; Ex 21:8-11, Lk 6:1-
11, Tr 7, 33--see the pericope Lk 6:4+ in Codex D (05) [Bezae]: "That same day, 
he saw someone working on the Sabbath,* he said to him: Man, if indeed you 
understand what you are doing, you are blest; if indeed you do not understand, 
you are accursed and a transgressor of the Torah"; Nestle-Aland, Novum 
Testamentum Graece, textual notes (*asyndeton)

Salome (61b): Hebrew (peaceful); an early female Disciple (Mk 15:40-41, 16:1)

Samaritan (60): those Hebrews not deported to Babylon and hence lacking the 
later OT scriptures (I-Ki 16:24, II-Ki 17), therefore in post-Exilic times 
considered heretics (as in Lk 10:25-37, Jn 4:1-42)

Saying/Meaning (Prolog, 1,19,38,79): Coptic $A¥E = Greek LOGOS = Hebrew AMR = 
Aramaic MEMRA; English 'meaning' derives from Anglo-Saxon 'mænan' = 'concept + 
expression', the exact sense of both logos and memra; Jn 1:1 thus reads 'In 
(the) Origin was the Meaning'; the Greek term for 'word' is RHMA

Simon Peter (13,114): Hebrew SHIMÓN = hearing (Gen 29:33); Greek PETROS (Peter) 
= Aramaic KEFA ('Cephas': bedrock)--the chief Apostle (Mt 10:2, 16:15-19)

Sky/Heaven (3,6,9,11,12,20,44,54,91,111,114): Coptic PE = Greek OURANOS; note 
that 'sky' = 'heaven' in Hebrew, Greek and Coptic

Theologian (39): Greek GRAMMATEUS (scribe); an expert on the scriptures (but Mt 
23)

Thomas (Prolog, 13, Colophon): Aramaic TEOM = Greek DIDUMOS (duplicate, twin); 
the Apostle Thomas, author of this text (Jn 11:16, 20:24-29, 21:2); also note 
that Hebrew 'Judas' = 'praised' = Arabic 'hammad' as in 'Nag Hammadi' (village 
of praise) and 'Mohammad' (great praise)

Totality/Everything/the All (2,6,67,77): Coptic THR-£ (all of him/it) 

Transient (42): Greek PARAGEIN (by-led); passer-by, itinerant--see Hebrew in Ph 
Notes

Trees (19): the 'five trees' may refer to the five senses (N.B. that all 
emotions can presumably be included in the realm of feeling); see Tr 28 and 
'Angel and Image', below (it is noteworthy that the olive tree in particular 
does not shed its leaves seasonally)

Vintage/Kind/Natural (47,65,90): Greek ChRHSTOS (used), Ph 126; the ancient 
pagans often confused this common term with the rare ChRISTOS, with reference to 
the Hebrew Messiah

Wickedness (45): Greek PONEROS; this term (which also occurs in the canonical 
Gospels at Mk 7:22-23 etc.) has a root meaning of hard work or laborious 
drudgery, thus oppressed or exploited

World/System (10,16,21,24,27,28,51,56,80,110,111): Greek KOSMOS (arrangement, 
order)--originally the pre-Socratic philosopher Pythagoras had used this term to 
designate the entire natural universe, as in 'cosmos'; but in the Gospel koiné 
(later common Greek) it had also come to signify the conventionality or 
artificiality of the human social system, as in 'cosmetic'; see Lk 2:1, 4:5-6, 
12:30-31

Yeshúa (Prolog et passim): Aramaic YESHÚA (yod.shin.vav.ayin) = Hebrew YEHÓSHUA; 
from YAHWEH YASHA (He-is Savior); Josh 1:1, Ezra 5:2 [Aramaic form], Mt 1:21, Ph 
20a; see also the Hebrew text of Ex 15:2 as well as the spelling of the 
Tetragrammaton as written in second commandment on synagogue tablets of the 
Decalogue [!]

Yoga (90): Coptic NA%B (yoke), here meaning a spiritual discipline (the cognate 
Sanskrit term 'yoga' conveys this sense quite well)

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THE GOSPEL OF PHILIP  

1. A Hebrew° person makes a (convert) Hebrew, who moreover is called thus: a 
novice° (proselyte). Yet a novice does not make (another) novice. [Some persons] 
are as they are [...] and also influence others [to become like themselves, 
while for the remainder] it suffices to them that they shall be. (Ex 12:48-49, 
Ac 6:5) 

2. The slave seeks only to be set free, yet he does not seek after the estate of 
his master. Yet the son is not only a son, but also ascribes to himself the 
inheritance of the father. (Jn 8:35)

3. Those who inherit the dead are themselves dead, and they inherit the dead. 
Those who inherit the living are alive, and they inherit both the living and the 
dead. The dead do not inherit anything. For how will the dead inherit? When the 
dead inherits the living, he shall not die but rather the dead shall instead 
live.

4. A nationalist° does not die, for he has never lived so that he could die. 
Whoever has trusted° the truth is alive--and this-one is in danger of dying (as 
a martyr), for he is alive since the day that the Christ° came. (Mt 24:9)

5. The system is contrived, the cities are constructed, the dead carried out. 
(asyndeta; Isa 40:17, Rev/Ap 18, Lk 9:60)

6. In the days when we were Hebrews we were orphans, having only our Mother (the 
Spirit°). Yet when we become Messianics°, the Father joins with the Mother. 

7. Those who sow in the winter reap in the summer. The winter is the world,* the 
summer is the other aeon°. Let us sow in the world so that we will harvest in 
the summer. Because of this, it is appropriate for us not to pray in the 
wintertime. What emerges from the winter is the summer. Yet if anyone reaps in 
the winter he will not harvest but rather uproot, as this method will not 
produce fruit. Not only does it not come forth [in the winter], but in the other 
Sabbath also his field is fruitless. (*asyndeton; Mt 6:1-6, Th 14, 27)

8. The Christ came! Some indeed he ransomed, yet others he rescued, yet for 
others he atoned°. He ransomed the alienated,* he brought them to himself. And 
he rescued those who came to him. These he set as pledges in his will. Not only 
when he appeared did he voluntarily lay down his soul, but since the day of the 
world's coming-to-be he placed his soul. Then at the time he desired he came 
earliest to reclaim her, since she was placed among the pledges. She had come to 
be under the bandits and they had taken her captive, yet he rescued her. He 
atoned for both the good and the evil in the world. (*asyndeton; Jn 10:17-18)

9. The light with the darkness, life with death, the right with the left are 
brothers to one another. It is not possible for them to be separated from one 
another. Because of this, neither is the good a good, nor are the evils an evil, 
nor is the life a life, nor is the death a death. Therefore each individual 
shall be solved into his origin from the beginning. Yet those who have been 
exalted above the world are indissoluble and eternal°. (Isa 45:7, Lam 3:38--cp. 
the Chinese Tao)

10. The names which have been given by the worldly--therein is a great 
confusion°. For their hearts are turned away from the real unto the unreal. And 
he who hears the (word) 'God' does not think of the real, but rather he is made 
to think of the unreal. So also with the (words) 'the Father' and 'the Son' and 
'the Holy Spirit' and 'the Life' and 'the Light' and 'the Resurrection' and 'the 
Convocation°' [and] all the other (words)--they do not think of the real, but 
rather they are made to think of the [un]real. Moreover they learn the [all-
human] reality of death. They are in the system,* [they think of the unreal]. If 
they were in eternity, they would not designate anything as a worldly evil nor 
would they be placed within worldly events. There is a destiny for them in 
eternity. (*asyndeton)

11. One single name they do not utter in the world--the name which the Father 
bestows upon himself in the Son. This he exalts above every other name. For the 
Son will not become the Father unless the name of the Father was bestowed upon 
him. This existing name they are indeed each made to think to himself, yet they 
speak it not. Yet those who do not have it do not even think it. But the truth 
begets these words in the world for our sake. It would not be possible to learn 
it without words. (Jn 17)

12. She alone is the truth. She makes the many, and she teaches us this alone in 
love thru many. (Ph 6, 18, 40)

13. The authorities° desire to deceive humankind, because they perceived him 
being in a kinship to the truly good. So they took the word 'good', they applied 
it to the ungood so that thru words they might deceive and bind him within the 
ungood. And subsequently whenever grace is enacted to them, they are to be 
withdrawn from the ungood and be appointed in the good--as these know. For they 
desired to take the free person and keep him as a slave to themselves forever. 
There is empowerment given to humans. They do not want him [to know], so that 
they will become [masters] over him. For where there is humankind, there is 
[slavery]. (Isa 5:20; this entry together with Ph 9, 10, 72, 136 pertain to the 
theoretical linguistics of this text)

14. Sacrifice began [...], and they offered up animals to the powers. [...] They 
indeed offered them up alive, but when they were offered up they died. But the 
human was offered up dead to God, and he lived.

15. Before Christ came there was no bread in the world as there had been in 
paradise°, the place where Adam was. There were many plants as nourishment for 
the animals, but it had no grain as food for humankind. So humans ate like the 
animals. But Christ came, the perfect° person. He brought forth bread in heaven 
so that humankind would be nourished with the food of humankind. (Ps 78:25, Jn 
6:30-59)

16. The authorities think that by their own power and volition they are doing 
what they do. Yet the Holy Spirit in secret was energizing everything thru them 
as she wished.

17. The truth is sown everywhere from the origin, and the multitude see it sown. 
Yet few who see it reap it. (Mt 22:14)

18. Some say that Mariam was impregnated by the Holy Spirit. They are confused,* 
they know not what they say. Whenever was a female° impregnated by a female? 
Mariam is the virgin whom no power defiled. She is the great consecration for 
the Hebrew Apostles° and for the Apostolics°. If the powers attempted to defile 
this virgin, they would only defile [themselves]. And the Lord did not say 'my 
Father [in] heaven', as if he had [another] father--but rather he said simply 
['my Father']. (*asyndeton; Lk 2:48-49, Ph 6)

19. The Lord said to the Disciples°: [...] Indeed come into the house of the 
Father, but do not possess anything in the house of the Father nor take anything 
away. (Jn 14:2)

20a. Yeshúa is a secret name, Christ is a revealed name. Thus Yeshúa does not 
occur in any (other) languages, but rather his name is Yeshúa as he is called. 
Yet his name Christ in Aramaic° is Messiah°, but in Ionian° is: ChRISTOS. 
Altogether, it is in all the other languages according to each one('s word for 
anointed°). 

20b. The revealed Nazarene° is the secret!

21. The Christ has everything within himself--whether human or angel° or 
mystery°, and also the Father.

22. They say that the Lord first died and then arose; they are confused. For 
first he arose and then he died. If anyone does not first acquire the 
resurrection he will die, for he is not really alive until God transforms him. 
(Th 29)

23. No one will hide a precious valuable in something expensive, but oftentimes 
has something worth countless myriads been placed in something worth a pittance. 
Thus is the case with the soul--a precious thing has come to be in a lowly body.

24. Some are fearful lest they arise naked. Therefore they desire to arise in 
the flesh, and they do not know that those who wear the flesh are the denuded. 
Those [...] who are divested (of the flesh) are those who are clad (in the 
images).

25. (Paul° claims that) 'flesh [and blood cannot] inherit the Kingdom [of God].' 
(I-Cor 15:50) What is this which shall not inherit? This which is upon us? Yet 
this is exactly what will inherit--that which belongs to Yeshúa with his flesh 
and blood. Therefore he said: Whoever does not eat my flesh and drink my blood 
has no life within himself. (Jn 6:53) What is his flesh?--it is the Logos. And 
his blood?--it is the Holy Spirit. Whoever has received these has food and drink 
and clothing. I disagree with those who say that flesh and blood shall not 
arise. Then (these) both are wrong: thou say that the flesh shall not arise, but 
tell me what will arise so that we may honor thee; thou say it is the spirit in 
the flesh and this light in the flesh, but this also is an incarnate saying. For 
whatever thou will say, thou do not speak apart from the flesh. It is necessary 
to arise in this flesh, as everything exists within it.

26. In this world they who wear garments are more valuable than the garments. In 
the Kingdom of the Heavens the garments are more valuable than those to whom 
they have been given by means of water and fire, which purify the entire place.

27. The revelations by means of revelation,* the secrets by means of secrecy. 
Some things are kept secret by means of the revelations. (*asyndeton; Th prolog, 
62, 108)

28. There is liquid in water, there is fire in Chrism°. (asyndeton)

29. Yeshúa took them all by stealth. For he did not reveal himself as he 
[really] was, but rather he reveals himself as [they will] be able to perceive 
him. He revealed himself to [them all--he revealed himself] to the great as 
great, he revealed himself to the small as small, he [revealed himself] to the 
angels as an angel and to humans as a human. Thus his Logos concealed him from 
everyone. Some indeed saw him while they thought they were seeing themselves. 
But when he revealed himself to his Disciples in glory on the mountain he was 
not made small. He became great, but he made the Disciples great so that they 
would be capable of beholding him made great. (Mt 17:1-8)

30. He says today in the Eucharist°: Oh thou who have mated° the Perfect Light 
with the Holy Spirit, mate also our angels with our imagery!

31. Do not disdain the Lamb, for without him it is not possible to see the door. 
No one divested will be able to enter unto the King. (Jn 1:36)

32. The Sons of the Man of Heaven are more numerous than those of the man of 
earth. If the sons of Adam are numerous although they surely die, how many more 
are the Sons of the Perfect Man--those who do not die but rather are continually 
born.

33. The Father creates a Son, but it is not possible for the Son himself to 
create a Son. For it is impossible for him who is begotten himself to beget. But 
rather the Son begets for himself Brothers instead of Sons. (Jn 20:17)

34. All those who are begotten in the system are begotten physically, and the 
others are begotten [spiritually]. Those begotten in his heart [call forth] 
there to humankind in order [to nourish] them in the promise [of the goal] which 
is above. [...] (Jn 1:12-13)

35. The Logos comes forth from the mouth. And he who is nourished from the mouth 
shall become perfect. The perfect are conceived thru a kiss and they are born. 
Therefore we also kiss one another--to receive conception in our mutual grace. 
(Th 108)

36. There were three Mariams who walked with the Lord at all times: his mother 
and [his] sister and the Magdalene°, she who is called his mate. Thus his (true) 
Mother, Sister and Mate is (also) called 'Mariam'. (Mk 3:35, Th 101)

37. 'Father' and 'Son' are single names, 'Holy Spirit' is a double name. For the 
Father and the Son are everywhere--above and below, secretly and manifestly. The 
Holy Spirit is the secret above within the manifestation below. 

38. The Saints are served by the oppressive powers, for the latter are blinded 
by the Holy Spirit so that they think they are assisting a human when in fact 
they are working for the Saints. Because of this, (when) a Disciple one day made 
request of the Lord for something worldly, he said to him: Request of thy Mother 
and she will give to thee from what belongs to another.

39. The Apostles said to the Disciples: May our entire offering obtain salt! 
They called [grace] 'salt'--without it no offering [becomes] acceptable. (Lev 
2:13, Num 18:19, Mk 9:49)

40. Wisdom is barren [without] the Son--hence she is called [his Mother]. But in 
the place of salt [...] the Holy Spirit has many Sons. (Prov 8, Isa 54:1, Lk 
7:35, Th 101)

41. Everything that the Father possesses belongs to the Son. And also he the 
Son, as long as he is small, (the Father) does not entrust to him what is his. 
But when he matures, the Father bestows on him all that he (himself) has. (Th 
61b)

42. Those who are lost are also begotten by the Holy Spirit, and they go astray 
thru her. Thus by the one breath°, the fire both blazes and is extinguished.

43. Wisdom is one thing, and dead wisdom is another. Wisdom is simply being 
wise, yet dead wisdom is the wisdom of death. That which acknowledges death is 
called the trite wisdom.

44. There are animals which are subject to mankind, such as the calf and the 
donkey and others of this kind. There are others which are not subject, and live 
apart in the wilderness. Man plows the field by means of the animals that are 
subject, and from this he feeds both himself and the animals whether tame or 
wild. So it is with the Perfect Person--thru the powers that are subject he 
plows, providing for everything which exists. For because of this the entire 
place stands--whether the good or the evil, both the right and the left. The 
Sacred Spirit shepherds everyone and commands all the powers, both those who are 
subject and also those who are not subject and are isolated. For truly she 
continues [...] to control them [beyond] their own volition. [...]

45. [Adam] was formed, and yet thou will [not] find his sons to be noble 
formations. If he were not formed but rather begotten, thou would find his seed 
to be noble. Yet for now he has been formed and he has begotten. What nobility 
is this? (Gen 2:7, 4:1)

46. Adultery occurred first, then murder. And (Cain°) was begotten in adultery, 
for he was the son of the serpent*. Therefore he became a manslayer just like 
his father, and he killed his brother. Yet every mating which has occurred 
between those who are dissimilar is adultery. (*i.e. born of the falsity called 
human, rather than divine, generation?; Gen 4:1-16, Jn 8:31-59!!, Th 105)

47. God is a dyer. Just as the good pigments which are called true then label 
the things which have been permanently dyed in them, so it is also with those 
whom God colors. Because his hues are imperishable, (those who are tinted) 
become immortal thru his coloring. Yet God immerses whomever he baptizes° in an 
inundation of waters (i.e. a flood of images?).

48. It is not possible for anyone to see anything of those that are established 
unless he becomes like them. Not as with the person who is in the world--he sees 
the sun without becoming a sun, and he sees the sky and the earth and all other 
things without being them. But in the truth it is thus--thou thyself saw 
something of that place, and thou came to be there. Thou saw the Spirit,* thou 
became spiritual; thou saw the Christ,* thou became christlike; thou saw [the 
Father,* thou] shall become paternal. Thus [in the world ...] thou see 
everything and [...] thou do not see thy self, yet thou see thy self in that 
[place]. For what thou see, thou shall [become]. (*asyndeta)

49. Faith receives,* love gives. [No one can receive] without faith,* no one can 
give without love. Therefore we believe in order that indeed we shall receive, 
yet we love in order that we may truly give. Otherwise, if someone gives without 
love, he derives no benefit from giving. (*asyndeta)

50. Whoever has not received the Lord is still a Hebrew. (Ph 6)

51. The Apostles who preceded us called him thus: Yeshúa' the Nazirite° Messiah, 
that is Yeshúa' the Nazirite Christ. The last name is the Christ, the first is 
Yeshúa', the middle is the [Nazirite]. Messiah has two significations: both 
anointed and also measurement°. Yeshúa' in Aramaic is the Atonement. Nazara is 
the truth, therefore the Nazirite is the true. Christ is the measurement, the 
[Nazirite] and Yeshúa' are the measured. (Num 6:1-8, Jud 13:5 -> Mt 2:23, Ph 20)

52. If the pearl is cast down into the mire it is not despised, nor if it is 
anointed with balsam oil is it more valued. But rather it has its great worth to 
its owner at all times. So it is with the Sons of God--whatever happens to them, 
they still have the great value to their Father. (Job 30:19, Jer 38:6)

53. If thou say 'I'm a Jew'--no one will be moved. If thou say 'I'm a Roman'--no 
one will be disturbed. If thou say 'I'm a Greek, a barbarian, a slave, a 
freeman'--no one will be troubled. If thou [say] 'I'm a Christic°'--[everyone] 
will tremble. May it be that I [speak] in such a manner that [they] will not be 
able to withstand [hearing] this name!

54. A god is a cannibal. Because of this, they [sacrifice] mankind to it. Before 
they sacrificed mankind, they were sacrificing animals. For these to which they 
sacrificed, were not divinities. (Ph 14)

55. Both vessels of glass and vessels of pottery come to be thru fire. But if 
glass vessels break they are remade, for they come to be by means of breath 
(spirit). Yet if pottery vessels break they are destroyed, for they come to be 
without breath.

56. A donkey going in a circle at a millstone did a hundred miles walking. When 
it was released it found itself still in the same place. There are also people 
who take many journeys but make no progress anywhere. When evening comes upon 
them, they discern neither city nor village, neither creation nor nature, 
neither power nor angel. In vain did the wretches toil! (Ps 127:2, Ecl 2:11)

57. The Eucharist is Yeshúa. For in Aramaic they call him FARISATHA--this is, 
the outspread. For Yeshúa came to crucify the world.

58. The Lord went into the dyeworks of Levi°. He took 72 complexions,* he threw 
them into the vat. He brought them all up white, and he said: This is how the 
son of mankind comes--[as] a dyer. (*asyndeton; Gen 10 [LXX] lists 72 nations in 
all the world; also, Lk 10:1 in some ancient MSS mentions 72 Disciples)

59. The wisdom which humans call barren is the Mother of the Angels. (Ph 40) And 
the Mate of the [Christ] is Mariam Magdalene. The [Lord loved] Mariam more than 
[all the other] Disciples, [and he] kissed her often on her [mouth. (Ph 35) He 
embraced] the other women also, yet they said to him: Why do thou love [her] 
more than all of us? | The Savior° replied,* he said to them: Why do I not love 
you as I do her? (*asyndeton; Th 61b)

60. While a blind person and one who sees are both in the dark, they do not 
differ from one another. But when the light comes, then he who sees shall behold 
the light yet he who is blind shall remain in the darkness. (Th 34) 

61. The Lord said: Blest be he who was before he came into being. (Th 19) For he 
who is, both was and shall be.

62. The exaltation of mankind is not manifest but rather implicit. Because of 
this he dominates the animals which are stronger than him--who thus is great 
both manifestly and implicitly. And this gives to them their survival. Yet when 
mankind separates from them, they kill each other and gnash each other and 
devour each other, because they find no food. Yet when mankind cultivated the 
earth they found food.

63. If anyone goes down into the water and comes back up without having 
received, but says 'I'm a Christic', he has taken the name on loan. Yet if he 
receives the Holy Spirit, he has the gift of the name. He who has received a 
gift is not deprived of it, but he who takes a loan has it demanded from him. 
(Th 41)

64. This is how it is when someone exists in a mystery--the sacrament° of 
marriage is grand. For the world is complex: [the system] is based upon mankind, 
yet [mankind] is based upon matrimony*. (Therefore) contemplate the pure mating, 
for it has [great] power. Its imagery is in a defiling [of bodies]. (*matrimony 
<-> patrimony°; Lev 15:18!!)

65. Among the unclean spirits there are male and female. The males indeed are 
those who mate with the souls inhabiting a female form, yet the females are 
those who unite° with a male form--both thru disparity°. (Ph 46) And no one will 
be able to escape from these once they seize him unless he receives both male 
and female power--which is the Bridegroom with the Bride. One receives them in 
the mirrored Bridal-Chamber. (Th 75) Whenever the foolish women see a male 
sitting alone, they leap upon him to carouse with him and defile him. So also 
the foolish men when they see a beautiful female sitting alone, they seduce her 
or coerce her in the desire to defile her. Yet if they see the man sitting 
together with his woman, the females cannot violate the man nor can the males 
violate the woman. So it is if the imagery and the angel are mated together, 
neither can anyone dare to violate the male or the female. (Ph 30) He who comes 
forth from the world cannot be detained any longer merely because he used to be 
in the world. It is evident that he transcends both the yearning and the fear of 
the [flesh]. He is master over [desire],* he is more precious than jealousy. And 
if [the many] come to seize him and strangle [him], how will he not be able to 
escape [by the salvation] of God? How can he fear them? (*asyndeton)

66. Many times there are some who come [and say]: We are faithful, hide us from 
[unclean spirits] and demons! But if they had the Holy Spirit, no unclean spirit 
would cling to them.

67. Do not fear the flesh, nor love it. If thou fear it, it will enslave thee. 
If thou love it, it will devour and strangle thee.

68. One exists either in this world or in the resurrection or in the 
transitional° regions. May it not occur that I be found in the latter! In this 
world there is good and evil. Its goods are not good and its evils are not evil. 
(Ph 9) Yet there is evil after this world, which is truly evil and which is 
called the transition; it is death. While we are in this world it is appropriate 
for us to be begotten in the resurrection, so that if we are divested of the 
flesh we shall find ourselves in the repose and not wander in the transition. 
For many go astray on the way. Thus it is good to come forth from the world 
before humankind transgressed. (Rev/Ap 20:5)

69. Some indeed neither wish nor are able. Yet others if they wish gain no 
benefit, for they do not act correctly. For desire makes them transgressors. Yet 
not desiring righteousness conceals from them both the wish and the deed.

70. An Apostolic in a vision saw some [...] who were in a house of fire, crying 
out in a fiery air, cast [...] in the flames. [... Even] the water in [that 
place is aflame], and they declare to themselves: [...] The waters cannot save 
us, whatever we may wish! They received [death as] chastisement. This is called 
the [outermost] darkness. The enemy [comes] forth in water with fire. (Rev/Ap 
20:14-15, Mt 25:30)

71. The soul and the spirit of the Son of the Bridal-Chamber come forth [in] 
water and fire with light. The fire is the Chrism, the light is the fire. I do 
not mean this fire that has no form, but rather the other--whose form is white 
and which is made of beautiful light and which bestows splendor. (Ph 26, 28)

72. The truth does not come unto the system naked, but rather it comes in 
symbols with imagery. The world will not receive it in any other fashion. There 
is a rebirth° (or upbirth) together with a reborn (or upborn) imagery. It is 
truly appropriate to be reborn (or upborn) thru the imagery. (Jn 3) What is the 
resurrection with its imagery?--it is appropriate to arise thru the imagery. The 
Bridal-Chamber with its imagery?--it is appropriate to come into the truth. This 
is the restoration°. It is appropriate to be begotten not only of the words 'the 
Father with the Son with the Holy Spirit', but also to be begotten of them 
themselves. Whoever is not begotten of them will have the name also taken from 
him. (Ph 63) Yet one receives them in the Chrism which comes in the power of the 
cross, which the Apostles call: the right with the left. For this-one is no 
longer a Christic but rather a Christ. (Isa 30:21)

73. The Lord [did] everything sacramentally: Baptism and Chrism and Eucharist 
and Atonement and [holy] Bridal-Chamber.

74. He said: I have come [to make the outer] as the inner and the [above as the 
below]. (Th 22) The other place [is represented] here in symbols. [...] She is 
the one who is above. (Ph 12) He who is revealed [...] from there is called: he 
who is below. And he has the hidden that is there above him. For it is good that 
they say: the inner and the outer together with what is outside of the outer. 
Because of this, the Lord called destruction: the outer darkness. There is 
nothing outside of that. He said: thy Father in secret. He said: Go into thy 
closet, shut thy door behind thee and pray to thy Father in secret. This is He 
who is within them all. Yet He who is within them all is the fullness--beyond 
him there is nothing further within. This is what is meant by: He who is above 
them (all). (Mt 8:12, 6:6, Th 77, Ph 70)

75. Before Christ some came forth. They are no longer able to enter into whence 
they came, and they are no longer able to exit from whither they went. Yet the 
Christ came. Those who had gone in he brought out, and those who had gone out he 
brought in.

76. In the days when Eve° was within Adam, there was no death. When she 
separated from him, death came to be. If [she] again enters and he receives 
[her], death will no longer be.

77. 'My God, my God, why oh Lord [have] thou abandoned me?'--He said these 
(words) on the cross. For he put asunder the [entire] place, having been 
begotten within the [Holy] Spirit by God. (Ps 22:1 -> Mk 15:34, vis-à-vis 
'Gnosticism'°)

78. The [Lord arose] from death. [He became again] as he had been, but [his 
body] was made [entirely] perfect. He wore the flesh, but this [flesh is indeed] 
the true flesh. (Jn 1:14) [Yet our flesh] is not true, but rather a mirror-image 
of the true [flesh]. 

79. The Bridal-Bed° is not for the animals nor is it for the slaves nor for the 
impure women, but rather it is for the free men with the virgins. (Ac 21:8-9!)

80. Thru the Holy Spirit we are indeed born, yet we are reborn (or upborn) thru 
the Christ. In both we are anointed thru the Spirit--and having been begotten, 
we are mated. (Gen 2:7, Jn 3:7)

81. No one will be able to see himself either in water or in a mirror without 
light. Nor again will thou be able to see thyself in the light without water or 
a mirror. Therefore it is appropriate to baptize in both--in the light and the 
water. Yet the light is the Chrism. (Isa 43:2, Mt 3:11)

82. There had been* three vestibules for places of offering in Jerusalem°--one 
open to the west called the holy, another open to the south called the holy of 
the holiness, the third open to the east called the holy of the holinesses where 
the high priest alone was to enter. Baptism is the holy vestibule, Atonement is 
the holy of the holiness, the holy of the holinesses is the Bridal-Chamber. 
Baptism has the resurrection [with] the Atonement entering the Bridal-Chamber. 
Yet the Bridal-Chamber is more exalted than those. [...] Thou will find nothing 
that [compares with it]. (multiple asyndeta; Lev 16, Num 18:7; *'There had 
been': Coptic pluperfect tense--hence this entry was written after the Roman 
conquest of 70 AD; see Plumley's Grammar, §231)

83. [Those who] pray [for] Jerusalem pray [in] Jerusalem and they see 
[Jerusalem]. These are called the holies (or Saints) of the holinesses.

84. [The sacred] veil was torn [in order to reveal] the Bridal-Bed, which is 
nothing but the imagery [which is] above. And the veil was torn from the top to 
the bottom, for it is appropriate for some from below to go above. (Th 84, Mk 
15:38)

85. Those who are clothed in the Perfect Light--the powers can neither see them 
nor restrain them. Yet one shall be clothed with light in the sacrament of the 
Mating. (Ph 38)

86. If the female had not separated from the male, she would not die with the 
male. [Her] separation was the inception of death. Therefore Christ came, so 
that he might overcome the separation that had obtained from the beginning and 
again mate the two. And to those who have died in the separation he shall give 
life by mating them. Yet the woman mates with her husband in the bridal-bed. 
Those however who have mated in the Bridal-Bed will no longer be separated. 
Because of this, Eve separated from Adam--because she did not mate with him in 
the Bridal-Bed. (Gen 3:19, Th 11, 22, Ph 76)

87. The soul of Adam came into being from a Spirit (= breath, Gen 2:7), and her 
Mate is the [Christ]. The Spirit bestowed upon (Adam) is his Mother, and is 
given to him in his soul. [Yet because] he was not mated [...] in the Logos, the 
dominant powers bewitched him. But those who mate with the [Holy] Spirit in 
secret [...] are invited individually to the Bridal-Bed, where they are mated.

88. Yeshúa revealed [himself by the River] Jordan° as the fullness of the 
Kingdom of the Heavens who precedes the totality. Moreover [*] he was begotten 
as a Son, moreover he was anointed, moreover he was atoned, moreover he atoned. 
(asyndeta; *dittography)

89. If it is appropriate to tell a mystery, the Father of the totality mated 
with the Virgin who had come down--and a fire shone for him on that day. He 
revealed the great Bridal-Bed. Thus his body came into being on that day. He 
came forth in the Bridal-Bed as one issuing from the Bridegroom with the Bride. 
This is how Yeshúa established the essence of the totality. And it is 
appropriate for each one of the Disciples to enter into his repose.

90. Adam came into being thru two virgins--thru the Spirit and thru the virgin 
earth. Therefore Christ was begotten thru a virgin, in order to rectify the fall 
which had occurred in the beginning. (Gen 2:7, Lk 1:26-35)

91. There were two trees in paradise--the one produces beasts,* the other 
produces humans. Adam ate from the tree that produces beasts, and becoming a 
beast he begot beasts. Because of this (the beasts) were then worshipped. Adam 
[ate] the fruit of that tree, [...] and this bore many fruits [...] which were 
also eaten; humans begot [humans] and worshipped humans. (*asyndeton)

92. God creates mankind, yet mankind creates gods. This is how it is in the 
world--the humans create gods and they worship their creations. It would be more 
appropriate for the gods to worship the humans! (Isa 44:9-20)

93. Thus is the truth regarding the deeds of mankind--those that come forth thru 
his power are therefore called works, but his creations are his sons who come 
forth thru his repose. Because of this, his power governs in his [works], yet 
his repose is manifest in his sons. And thou will find that this also penetrates 
thru the imagery: this is the Mirrored Person--doing his [works] in his power, 
yet begetting his Sons in his repose. (Jn 5:19, Th 50!)

94. In this world the slaves work for the free. In the Kingdom of the Heavens 
the free serve the slaves: the Sons of the Bridal-Chamber serve the sons of 
marriage. The Sons of the Bridal-Chamber have [a single] name, share in the 
repose, and have no needs. [...] (Ph 64)

95. Contemplation° [of the images] is the greatest [...] of glories. (compare 
Aristotle, Metaphysics XII.7, 1072b.23)

96. [Those who] go down into the water do not go down to death, for he atoned 
for those who are [fulfilled] in his name. For he said: [Thus] we must fulfill 
all righteousness. (Mt 3:15)

97. Those who say that they will first die and then arise are confused. If they 
do not first receive the resurrection while they live, they will receive nothing 
when they die. Thus it is said also of Baptism in stating that Baptism is great, 
for those who receive it shall live. (Ph 22)

98. Philip the Apostle° says: Joseph the Craftsman° planted a garden because he 
needed wood for his craft. He made the cross from the trees that he planted, and 
his posterity hung on that which he had planted. His posterity is Yeshúa, yet 
the plant is the cross. But the tree of life is in the center of paradise, the 
olive tree from which the Chrism comes thru him who is the resurrection. (Mt 
13:55, Ex 30:22-33, Dt 21:22-23)

99. This world devours corpses--everything which is eaten in it thereby dies. 
The truthful consumes the living--therefore no one nourished in [the living 
shall] die. Yeshúa came forth from that place and he brought nourishment from 
there. And to those whom he wished he gave life so that they would not perish. 
(Jn 6:53, Th 11, 60, Ph 15)

100. God [planted] a garden-paradise. Mankind lives in the garden, but [...] 
their hearts [...] are not in God. [...] This garden [is the place] where it 
will be said: My Son, [eat] this or do not eat that according to thy desire. In 
this place I shall consume all things, for the tree of knowledge is there. It 
slew Adam, yet the place of the tree of knowledge gave life to mankind. The 
Torah° is the tree. It has the capability to bestow the knowledge of good and 
evil. It neither stopped him from evil nor preserved him in the good, but rather 
it presupposed death for those who ingested it. For death originated in his 
saying: Eat this but do not eat that. (Th 113, Gen 2:16-17)

101. The Chrism is lord over Baptism. For from the Chrism we are called 
Christics, and not because of the Baptism. And he is called the Christ because 
of the Chrism. For the Father anointed the Son, yet the Son anointed the 
Apostles, yet the Apostles anointed us. (Lk 4:18, Jn 20:21-22, Ac 6:5-6) He who 
is anointed has everything--he has the resurrection, the light, the cross,* the 
Holy Spirit. The Father bestowed this upon him in the Bridal-Chamber, and he 
received. (*asyndeton)

102. The Father was in the Son, and the Son in the Father. This is the Kingdom 
of the Heavens! (Jn 14:10, 17:20-23)

103. Ideally did the Lord say: Some have entered the Kingdom of the Heavens 
laughing, and they came forth [from the world rejoicing]. The Christic [...] who 
went down into the water immediately came forth as lord over everything, because 
[he not only considered] (this world) a farce but also [disdained it for] the 
Kingdom of the Heavens. [...] If he disparages it and scorns it as a farce, he 
will come forth laughing.

104. This is altogether how it is with the bread and the chalice and with the 
ointment--there is nonetheless another (sacrament) more exalted than these. (Ph 
73)

105. The system began in a transgression, for he who contrived it desired to 
make it imperishable and immortal. He fell away and did not attain his ambition. 
For there is no imperishability of the system, and there was no imperishability 
of him who contrived the system. For there is no imperishability of things but 
only of Sons, and no one can obtain imperishability except by becoming a Son. 
Yet he who is unable to receive, how much more will he be unable to give! (Ph 5, 
49)

106. The chalice of communion° contains wine and water, for it is appointed as 
the symbol of the blood for which the Eucharist is celebrated. And it is filled 
with the Holy Spirit, and it belongs to the completely Perfected Person. 
Whenever we drink this, we receive the Perfect Person. (Jn 19:34, I-Jn 5:6-8)

107. The living water is a body. It is appropriate that we be clothed with the 
Living Person. Because of this, when he comes to go down into the water he 
undresses himself in order that he may be clothed with that.

108. A horse begets a horse, a human begets a human,* a god begets a god. This 
is how it is with the Bridegroom within the Bride--[the Sons] come forth in the 
Bridal-Chamber. The Jews did not derive from the Greeks, and we Christics do not 
[derive] from the Jews. [...] And these are called the chosen generation of the 
[Holy Spirit]--the true person and the son of mankind and the seed of the son of 
mankind. This generation are called the true ones in the world. This is the 
place where the Sons of the Bridal-Chamber are. (*asyndeton)

109. Mating in this world is the man upon the woman, the place of strength over 
weakness. In eternity the mating is something else in the likeness of this, yet 
it is called by these same names. Yet there is another (mating) which is exalted 
beyond all designated names, and which transcends force. For where there is 
force, there are also those who are more precious than force. 

110. The one is not, and the other is--but these are together the single unity. 
This is He who shall not be able to come unto me thru a heart of flesh. (Ph 9)

111. Is it not appropriate for all those who possess the totality to understand 
themselves? Some indeed, who do not understand themselves, do not enjoy what 
they have. Yet those who do understand themselves shall enjoy it. (Th 67)

112. Not only will they be unable to seize the perfected person, but they will 
not be able even to see him. For if they saw him they would seize him. In no 
other fashion will one be able to be begotten of this grace, unless he is 
clothed in the Perfect Light and himself becomes one of the Perfect Lights. 
[...] Thus clad he enters into this perfection.

113. [It is appropriate] that we become [perfected persons] before we come forth 
[from the world]. Whoever receives everything [without mastering] these places 
will [not be able to master] that place, but rather he shall [go] to the 
transition as imperfect. Only Yeshúa knows the destiny of that one.

114. The Saint is entirely holy, including his body. For if he receives the 
bread he sanctifies it, or the chalice, or anything else he receives he 
purifies. And how will he not purify the body also?

115. By perfecting the water of Baptism, Yeshúa poured death away. Because of 
this, we indeed go down into the water yet we do not go down unto death, in 
order that we not be poured away into the spirit of the world. Whenever that 
breathes the winter comes, but when the Holy Spirit breathes the summer comes. 
(Mk 10:38-39)

116. Whoever recognizes° the truth is free. Yet he who is free does not 
transgress, for 'he who transgresses is the slave of transgression.' (I-Jn 3:9, 
Jn 8:34) The Mother is the truth, yet recognition is the union. These to whom it 
is given not to transgress in the world are called free. These to whom it is 
given not to transgress have their hearts exalted by recognizing the truth. This 
is what liberates them and exalts them over the universe. Yet (Paul claims that 
'knowledge is vain but) love edifies.' (I-Cor 8:1) He however who is liberated 
thru recognition is enslaved by love for the sake of those who have not yet been 
able to be carried up to the freedom of recognition. Yet recognizing suffices to 
liberate them.

117. Love [does not take] anything, for how [can it take anything when 
everything belongs to it?] It does not say 'This is [mine]' or '[That] is mine', 
[but rather it says] 'It is thine.'

118. Spiritual love is wine and fragrance. All those who are anointed with it 
enjoy it. As long as the anointed remain, those also enjoy it who stand beside 
them. But if they who are anointed with the Chrism withdraw and depart, those 
who are not anointed but only stand alongside will still remain in their own 
miasma. The Samaritan gave nothing to the wounded man except wine and ointment--
and it healed the wounds, for 'love covers a multitude of transgressions.' (Lk 
10:30-37, Prov 10:12 -> I-Pet 4:8)

119. Those whom the woman begets will resemble him whom she loves. If it is her 
husband they will resemble her husband,* if it is an adulterer they will 
resemble the adulterer. Often, if there is a woman who sleeps with her husband 
by compulsion yet her heart is toward the adulterer and she mates with him and 
begets, then the one to whom she gives birth resembles the adulterer. Yet you 
who are with the Sons of God--love not the world but rather love the Lord, so 
that those whom you beget will not be made to resemble the world but rather will 
be made to resemble the Lord. (*asyndeton)

120. The human unites with the human, the horse unites with the horse, the 
donkey unites with the donkey. The species unite with their like-species. Thus 
in this manner the Spirit unites with the Spirit, the Logos mates with the 
Logos, and the Light mates [with the Light]. If thou become human then [mankind 
will] love thee, if thou become [spiritual] then the Spirit will mate with thee, 
if thou become meaningful then the Logos will unite with thee, if thou become 
enlightened then the Light will mate with thee, if thou transcend then the 
Transcendental will repose upon thee. But if thou become like a horse or a 
donkey or a calf or a dog or a sheep or any other animal outside and inferior, 
then neither mankind nor the Spirit nor the Logos nor the Light nor those above 
nor those within will be able to love thee. They will be unable to repose in thy 
heart and they will not be thy heritage. (multiple asyndeta; Ph 108)

121. He who is enslaved against his own volition will be able to be freed. He 
who has been liberated by the gift of his master, and has sold himself back into 
slavery, will no longer be able to be freed. (Ex 21:5-6 [but also Lev 25:10], Ph 
116)

122. Cultivation in the world is thru four modes°--(crops) are gathered into the 
barn thru earth and water and wind and light. And the cultivation by God is 
likewise thru four: trust and hope° and love and recognition. Our earth is trust 
in which we take root, the water is hope thru which we are nourished, the wind 
is love thru which we grow, yet the light is recognition thru which we ripen. 
[...] (Ph 116)

123. Grace made [...] the earth to be made [...] in Heaven above. Blest be this 
[...] soul!

124. This is Yeshúa the Christ--he beguiled the entire place and did not burden 
anyone. Therefore blest be a perfected person of this kind, for such is the 
Logos.

125. Ask us concerning him, inasmuch as it is difficult uprightly (to portray 
him). How shall we be able to succeed in this magnificent task?

126. How will he bestow repose on everyone? First and foremost, it is not 
appropriate to aggrieve anyone--whether great or small, unbeliever or believer. 
Then, to provide repose for those who rest in the good. There are some whose 
privilege it is to provide repose for those who are ideal. He who does good 
cannot of himself give repose to them, for he does not come of his own volition. 
Yet neither can he grieve them, for he does not oppress or distress them. But he 
who is ideal sometimes grieves them--not that he is thus (grievous), but rather 
it is their own wickedness which causes them grief. Whoever is natural° gives 
joy to him who is good--yet consequently some grieve terribly. (Th 90)

127. The master of an estate acquired everything--whether son or slave or dog or 
cattle or swine, whether wheat or barley or straw or hay or [bones] or meat [or] 
acorns. He was wise and knew the food of [each]. Before the sons he indeed set 
bread and [olive-oil with meat, before] the slaves he set castor-oil with grain, 
before the cattle he set [barley] with straw and hay, to the dogs he cast bones, 
yet before [the swine] he threw acorns and crusts of bread. So it is with the 
Disciple of God--if he is wise he is perceptive about the Discipleship. The 
bodily forms will not deceive him, but rather he will look to the disposition of 
the soul of each one in order to speak with him. In the world there are many 
animals made in human form--these he recognizes. To the swine indeed he will 
throw acorns, yet to the cattle he will cast barley with straw and hay, to the 
dogs he will cast bones, to the slaves he will give the elementary, to the Sons 
he shall present the Perfect.

128. There is the son of mankind and there is the grandson of mankind. The Lord 
is the son of mankind, and the grandson of mankind is he who is created thru the 
son of mankind. The son of mankind received from God (the ability) to create as 
well as to beget.

129. That which is created is a creature,* that which is begotten is a child. A 
creature cannot beget,* (but) a child can create. Yet they say: The creature 
begets. But a child is a creature. Therefore (a person's) children are not his 
sons but rather [God's]. (*asyndeta; Ecl 11:5, Isa 29:23, Jn 1:12-13 & 3:3, Ph 
33)

130. He who creates, works manifestly and he himself is manifest. He who begets, 
acts in secret and is himself [hidden from] the imagery. He who creates [indeed] 
creates visibly, yet he who begets the Sons [begets them] in secret.

131. No [one will be able] to know on what day [the man] and the woman mate with 
each other, except themselves only. For marriage in the world is a mystery for 
those who have taken a wife. If the marriage of impurity is hidden, how much 
more is the immaculate marriage a true sacrament! It is not carnal but rather 
pure, it is not lustful but rather willing, it is not of the darkness or the 
night but rather of the day and the light. A marriage which is exhibited becomes 
prostitution°, and the bride has prostituted herself not only if she receives 
the semen of another man but even if she leaves the bedroom° and is seen. She 
may only display herself to her father and her mother and the comrade of the 
bridegroom and the sons of the bridegroom. To these it is given to enter daily 
into the bridal-chamber and to see her. Yet as for the others, let them yearn 
even to hear her voice and to enjoy her fragrance, and let them feed like the 
dogs from the crumbs that fall from the table. Bridegrooms with Brides belong in 
the Bridal-Chamber. No one will be able to behold the Bridegroom with the Bride 
unless he becomes this. (Mk 7:28, Jn 3:29!)

132. When Abraham° [rejoiced] at seeing what he was to see, he circumcised the 
flesh of the foreskin--showing us that it is appropriate to sever the flesh 
[...] of this world. (Gen 17:9-14, Jn 8:56, Th 53)

133. As long as [......] the entrails of the person are enclosed, the person 
continues to live. [...] If his entrails are exposed and he is disemboweled, the 
person will die. So also the tree sprouts and thrives as long as its root is 
covered, but if its root is exposed the tree withers. Thus it is with everything 
in the world, not only with the manifest but also with the covert. For as long 
as the root of evil is hidden it is strong, yet when it is recognized it 
decomposes and when it is exposed it perishes. This is why the Logos (John!) 
says: Already the axe has reached the root of the trees! (Mt 3:10) It will not 
merely chop off, for that which is chopped off sprouts again. But rather the axe 
delves down underground and uproots. Yeshúa pulled up the root of the entire 
place, yet the others had done so only in part. As for ourselves--let each one 
of us dig down to the root of the evil that is within him and pull up its root 
from out of his own heart. Yet it will be uprooted if we but recognize it. Yet 
if we are unaware of it, it takes root within us and produces its fruits in our 
hearts. It becomes master over us and we become its slaves. We are taken 
captive, and we are coerced into doing what we do [not] want and [not] doing 
what we do want. It is potent because we do not recognize it. While indeed it is 
subliminal it impels.

134. Ignorance is the mother of [all evils....] (Lk 23:34, Ac 3:17) Those things 
which came forth from [ignorance] neither existed nor [exist] nor shall exist 
[in reality. Yet] they shall be perfected when the entire truth is revealed. For 
the truth is like ignorance--while it is hidden it reposes within itself, yet 
when it is revealed it is recognized. It is glorious in that it prevails over 
ignorance and confusion and in that it liberates. The Logos says: You shall know 
the truth and the truth will set you free. Ignorance is slavery, recognition is 
freedom. By recognizing the truth we shall find the fruits of the truth within 
our hearts. By mating with it we shall receive our fulfillment. (Jn 8:32)

135. At present we have the revelation of creation. They say that (visible 
beings) are strong and honorable yet the invisible are weak and contemptible. 
However the truth is that visible beings are weak and inferior yet the invisible 
are strong and honorable.

136. The mysteries of the truth are revealed in symbolic imagery. Yet the 
bedroom is hidden--it is the holy (or the Saint) within the holiness.

137. The veil indeed at first concealed how God governs the creation. Yet when 
the veil is torn and the things within are revealed, then this house will be 
forsaken and desolate and yet moreover it shall be destroyed. Yet the whole 
divinity shall depart from these places, never to re-enter, for it shall not be 
able to unite therein with the light and with the fullness. But rather it shall 
enter into the holies (or Saints) of the holinesses, under the wings of the 
cross [and in] its arms. (Ex 26:31-34, Mt 27:51, 23:38, 24:2, Ph 83)

138. This ark will become salvation [for us] when the cataclysm of water 
overwhelms them.

139. If someone is in the tribe of the priesthood, he shall be allowed to enter 
within the veil with the high priest. Therefore the veil was not torn at the top 
only, else it would have been opened only for those who are higher--nor was it 
torn at the bottom only, else it would have been revealed only to those who are 
lower. But rather it was torn from the top to the bottom. Those who are above 
have opened to us who are below in order that we might enter into the secret of 
the truth. (Num 18:7, Mk 15:38)

140. This strengthening is truly excellent. Yet we shall enter therein by means 
of despised symbols and weaknesses. They are indeed humble by comparison with 
the perfect glory. There is a glory that surpasses glory,* there is a power 
which surpasses power. Therefore the perfect have opened to us with the secrets 
of the truth. Moreover, the holies (or Saints) of the holinesses are revealed, 
and the bedroom has invited us within. (*asyndeton; Ph 83, 137)

141. As long as evil indeed is covert it is potent, not yet truly purged from 
the midst of the seed of the Sacred Spirit. They are enslaved by the oppression. 
Yet when the Perfect Light is revealed, then it will pour forth upon everyone 
and all those within it shall receive the Chrism. Then the slaves shall be freed 
[and] the captives atoned.

142. '[Every] plant which my heavenly Father has not implanted [shall be] rooted 
out.' (Mt 15:13) Those who are separated shall be mated [and the empty] shall be 
filled. (Th 40) Everyone who [enters] the bedroom shall be born of the Light. 
For they are [not begotten] in the manner of the [unseen] marriages which are 
enacted by night, the fire of which [flares] in the dark (and then) is 
extinguished. Yet the sacraments of this marriage are consummated in the day and 
the light. That day with its light never sets.

143. If anyone becomes a Son of the Bridal-Chamber, he shall receive the Light. 
If he does not receive it in these places, he will not be able to receive it in 
the other place. He who receives the Light shall not be seen nor shall he be 
seized, nor shall anyone disturb such a one even if he socializes in the world. 
And furthermore, when he leaves the world he has already received the truth in 
the imagery. The world has become eternity, because the fullness is for him the 
eternal. And it is thus revealed to him individually--not hidden in the darkness 
or the night but rather hidden in a Perfect Day and a Holy Light. (Ph 85)

The Gospel according to Philip°

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

NOTES TO PHILIP

	The translation of Philip is concordant with that of Thomas, and therefore 
words discussed in the notes there are not repeated here. Complete references 
are listed for selected terms; otherwise only the first occurrence is given.

Abraham (132): Hebrew (father of many); the first Hebrew patriarch (Gen 11:26 
etc.)

Aeon (7): Coptic ENE%= Greek AIWN (unconditional); designates either a specific 
limited era of time, or a transtemporal eternity

Angel (21,29,30,56,59,65): Greek AGGELOS = Hebrew MALAK (emissary, messenger), 
here the observing angel/child of God, and thus one's true self (cp. Immanuel 
Kant's 'transcendental unity of apperception'); Mt 18:10, Lk 20:36, Th 88, 
'Angel and Image', below)

Anointed (20): Hebrew MASHIAKH (Messiah) = Greek ChRISTOS; in ancient Israel 
priests and prophets and monarchs were installed by crowning with an olive-oil 
ointment (Ex 29:7, I-Ki 19:16, II-Sam 2:4--hence Lk 4:18, Mt 26:6-7); see Gen 
28:18, Ex 30:22-33

Apostle (18): Greek APOSTOLOS (sent forth); one who is commissioned

Apostolic (18): Greek APOSTOLIKOS (follower of the Apostles) 

Aramaic (20): Semitic language of the ancient world, dated by extra-Biblical 
records to 3000 BC, source of Hebrew square-letter alphabet and the language of 
Abraham (Dt 26:5) as well as of Christ in his ministry (Mk 5:41, 7:34, 15:34, Mt 
27:46); Gen 22:20-21, II-Ki 18:26, Isa 36:11

Atone (8,51,73,82,88,96,141): Coptic CWTE (note = Greek SWTHR: Savior) = Greek 
LUTROW = Hebrew KPR (cover, substitute; as in 'Yom Kippur': Day of Atonement); 
personal sacrifice or suffering, by the guilty or by the innocent, which serves 
to reconcile the guilty (Lev 1:1-4, 16:1-34, Isa 53, Mt 5:10-12, 20:28, Th 58, 
68, 69a); see Sacrament and Tr 1

Authority (13): Greek ARChWN (original-being); an official within the system

Baptism (47,73,81,82,97,101,115): Greek BAPTISMA (immersion); the sacrament of 
spiritual cleansing vis-à-vis the Torah--see John the Baptist in Th Notes, Mk 
1:4, Mt 28:19, Ac 1:22, Tr 37

Bedroom (131,136): Greek KOITWN 

Breath (42): see Spirit

Bridal-Bed (79,84,86,87,89): Greek PASTOS 

Cain (46): Hebrew (product and hence possession); that is, 'my or our work' 
rather than 'work of God', perhaps indicating the 'original transgression' of 
humans as claiming (Godlike) to create and hence to judge their offspring; Gen 
2:15-4:1, Ecl 11:5!--see Ph 93 & 129

Chrism (28,51,52,71,72,73,80,81,88,98,101,118,141): Greek ChRISMA (unguent) = 
Coptic NE% and CO6N and TW%C; the sacrament of anointing with oil, 
christification; see Anointed and Tr 41

Christ (4): Greek ChRISTOS; see Anointed

Christic (53): Greek ChRISTIKOS (follower of Christ) = Hebrew 'Messianic' 
(follower of the Messiah)

Communion (106): Coptic $LHL; communicating with God, prayer (note that in Lk 
18:1, PANTOTE PROSEUChESThAI means pray continually)

Confusion (10): Greek PLANH (straying); hence 'planet' as a celestial body which 
appears to stray relative to the fixed stars

Contemplation (95): Greek ThEWRIA; here meaning to behold one's imagery as God's 
own manifested imagination (Mt 18:10 and 'Angel and Image', below); the quote in 
Aristotle is: H ThEWRIA TO HDISTON KAI ARISTON, 'Contemplation [of the 
intelligible (NOHTOS) is] the most delightful and excellent.' 

Convocation (10): Greek EKKLHSIA (called-out); the assembly of those 'called 
forth' from the world (Mt 16:18, 18:15-20); this had been the term for the 
Athenian Assembly

Disciple (19): Greek MAThHTHS (pupil, follower); compare Apostle

Disparity (65): Coptic AT.TWT (not in agreement, not conjoined)

Eternal (9,10,109,143): see Aeon

Eucharist (30,57,73,106): Greek EUChARISTIA (well-joying, thanksgiving); the 
sacrament of bread and wine (Lk 22:14-20)

Eve (76): Hebrew (living; Gen 3:20); see Cain and Female

Female (18): Coptic C%IME; here emphasizing the Holy Spirit as our Mother, as in 
Isa 49:15, 66:13, Lk 13:34; see Spirit

Hebrew (1): Hebrew EBER (cross over, beyond, passer-by, transient: Th 42!); the 
lineage of Shem and especially of Abraham (Gen 10:21, 14:13, 16:15--thus Ishmael 
also was a Hebrew)

Hope (122): Greek ELPIS (expectation); not mere wishing, but rather anticipation

Ionian (20): Greek IONIOS (violet) = Hebrew JAVAN/YAYIN (wine); Hebrew name for 
the Greeks (Gen 10:2-5, Dan 8:21); the coast of Asia Minor (now Turkey) was 
where Greeks met the middle-eastern civilizations, acquiring the alphabet via 
the Semitic-speaking Phoenicians (FOINIX: purple--Greek name for the Canaanites 
[!!!, Hebrew: 'merchants'] of Gen 9:18-10:19, 12:5-7, I-Ki 5, Isa 23; according 
to Herodotus' Histories, Thales of Miletus--the first 'pre-Socratic'--was a 
Phoenician)

Jerusalem (82): Hebrew (foundations/city of peace); Hebrew YARAH (directive) is 
the root of both 'Jeru-' and 'Torah'

Jordan (88): Hebrew (descender); the river of the Holy Land, in the northern 
extension of Africa's Great Rift Valley

Joseph the Craftsman (98): Joseph = Hebrew (addition); craftsman = Coptic %AM$E, 
Greek TEKTWN (Mt 13:55)

Levi (58): Hebrew (join, convert); the OT patriarch of the priestly line; Ph 58 
could thus be interpreted: 'The Lord went into the dyeworks of conversion [or of 
the priesthood]....' (Isa 14:1, Zech 2:11)

Magdalene (36,59): Hebrew (great, watchtower) Isa 5:1-2, Mic 4:8, Lk 8:2, Jn 
20:1-18; it should be noted that APTW in Jn 20:17 means not 'touch' but rather 
'kindle, caress'

Mate (30,36,59,65,80,86.87,89,119,120,131,142): Coptic %WTP= Greek KOINWNIA 
(common-being); sexual union

Measurement (51): Hebrew M-SHQL (of-weighing) is apparently here being punned 
with MASHIAKH (Messiah)

Messiah (20): Hebrew MASHIAKH; see Anointed

Messianic (6): Hebrew 'Messiah' with Greek suffix -IKOS; thus 'follower of the 
Messiah'--see Christic

Mode (122): Greek EIDOS (form); the term for the Platonic forms (often as IDEA) 
as well as the Aristotelian species; note also the evident allusion to the four 
primary elements of ancient physics: earth, water, air, and fire (recast in 
modern formulation as the four basic states of matter: solid, liquid, gas, and 
plasma)

Mystery (21,64,73,85,89,104,131,136,142): Greek MUSTHRION (secret or sacrament, 
a term from the ancient Mediterranean 'Mystery Religions'); see Th 62, Tr 5, 45 

Nationalist (4): Greek EThNIKOS = Hebrew GOY (body, corpse!); non-Israelite, 
pagan, Gentile, as in Ps 2, Mt 18:17, 20:25, 24:9, Ac 4:25-26

Natural (126): see Vintage/Kind/Natural in Th notes

Nazarene (20b): Hebrew 'of Nazareth' (NT Greek spelling NAZARHNOS, as in Mk 
1:24); to be carefully distinguished from: 

Nazirite (51): Hebrew (consecrated, crowned; LXX and NT Greek spelling 
NAZWRAIOS, as in Num 6:1-8, Jud 13:5 -> Mt 2:23); Hebrew holy man or woman with 
uncut hair, abstaining from products of the grapevine, and avoiding corpses

Novice (1): Greek PROSHLUTOS (proselyte, toward-comer); a Torah convert (Num 
9:14, Tob 1:8, Mt 23:15, Ac 2:10) such as St. Nicholas of Antioch ('Santa 
Claus', the first Gentile Disciple!) at Ac 6:5

Ointment (104): the chrism or oil of anointing; see Chrism

Paradise (15): Greek PARADEISOS; Persian word meaning 'garden/park'

Patrimony (64): attribution of the begetting of children to human parents rather 
than directly to God ('matrimony <-> patrimony' [or 'marriage <-> inheritance'] 
signifies mutual logical entailment, as in Gen 25:5-6 and also laws 170-71 of 
the Code of Hammurabi); see Cain, Dt 14:1, Hos 1:10, Mt 23:8-9, Jn 1:12-13, 
11:52, Th 105

Paul (25,116): Latin 'small'; the supposed Apostle (but see 'The Paul Paradox', 
below); remarkably, Mt 5:19 can thus be read 'Whoever relaxes one of the least 
of these commandments ... shall be called Paul [i.e. small]' (!)

Perfect (15): Greek TELEIOS (completed); Biblical morality exhibits a three-
valued rather than a binary logic: [1] evil/wrong (in violation of the Torah), 
[2] good/right (in accordance with the Torah), and [3] perfect (in accordance 
with the Messiah); see Mt 5:48, 19:16-21

Philip The Apostle (98): Philip = Greek FILOS-IPPOS -> FILIPPOS: friend of 
horses--Mk 3:18, Jn 1:43-46, 12:21, 14:8; to be distinguished from:

Philip The Evangelist (Colophon): Ac 6:1-6, 8:4-40, Ac 21:8 ff.--author of this 
text

Prostitution (131): Greek PORNEIA (from PERNHMI: to sell); does not mean 
'fornication' (non-adulterous sexual relations outside of marriage) but rather 
'prostitution' (commercial or cultic sexual relations, as in 'porno-graphy'); 
see Mk 7:21, Th 105 as well as Bruce Malina's important article in the Dutch 
journal Novum Testamentum 1972; forbidden by Dt 23:17 (cultic) & Lev 19:29 
(commercial--note that the blame falls solely on her parents)

Rebirth (72): Coptic ¥PO.N.KE.COP = Greek GENETH ANWThEN (both: generation from 
above [up-place]); can equally mean 'birth from above' or 'birth again' (compare 
Jn 3:3 with 3:31)

Recognition (116,122,134): Coptic COOUN = Greek GNWSIS (gnosis); this important 
term means direct personal acquaintance rather than mere intellectual knowledge; 
Th 5, 43, 51, 78, 91, Tr 1, 4, 6, etc.; re the anti-Gnosticism of these texts, 
see Th 28, Ph 77, Tr 10, 29, Incarnate in Th Notes ('Gnosticism' by definition 
denies the reality of the physical universe, and thus of all incarnation; our 
texts, on the contrary, share the Biblical view that both the natural universe 
and all incarnation are divinely created)

Restoration (72): Greek APOKATASTASIS (from-down-stand), as in Ac 1:6 & 3:21--in 
the secular papyri this term is used for the repair of buildings, returning 
estates to their rightful owners, and balancing accounts

Sacrament (64): see Mystery; Ph 73 gives a hierarchical list of five Sacraments

Savior (59): Greek SWTHR = Coptic NOU%M = Hebrew YASHA; see Yeshúa in Th Notes, 
Tr 1

Spirit (6): Greek PNEUMA (neuter gender) = Hebrew RUAKH (feminine gender!); in 
both languages the word for 'spirit' is like 'breath' or 'wind' (Isa 57:16, Jn 
3:5-8)

Symbol (72,74,136): Greek TUPOS (mark, alphabetical letter, pattern, model)

Torah (100): Hebrew (directive); the 613 commandments or mitzvot of the OT Law, 
also specifically the five books of Moses (Gen -> Dt); Ps 9:7-10, Mt 5:17-19, Lk 
16:31, Tr 36 

Transition (68): Coptic MHTE = Greek MESOTHS (middle); between alternatives, 
neither the one nor the other (Rev/Ap 3:16)

Trust (4): Greek PISTIS (trust, faith); not mere factual opinion, but rather 
personal confidence in someone or something

Unite (65): Coptic TW% (combine or couple, copulate)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

THE GOSPEL OF TRUTH (VALENTINE)

1. The Gospel of Truth is joy for those who have received from the Father of 
truth the gift of recognizing° him, thru the power of the meaning who comes 
forth from the fullness which is in the thought and mind of the Father. This is 
he who is called the Savior--that being the name of the task which he is to do 
for the atonement of those who had been unacquainted with the name of the 
Father. (Mt 1:21, Jn 17, Ac 4:12)

2. Now the Gospel is the revelation of the hopeful, it is the finding of those 
themselves who seek him. For since the totality were searching for him from whom 
they came forth--and the totality were within him, the incomprehensible 
inconceivable, he who is beyond all thought--hence unacquaintance with the 
Father caused anxiety and fear. Then the anxiety condensed like a fog so that no 
one could see.

3. Wherefore confusion grew strong, contriving its matter in emptiness and 
unacquaintance with the truth, preparing to substitute a potent and alluring 
fabrication for truthfulness. But this was no humiliation for him, the 
incomprehensible inconceivable. For the anxiety and the amnesia and the 
deceitful fabrication were nothing--whereas the established truth is immutable, 
imperturbable and of unadornable beauty. Therefore despise confusion! It has no 
roots and was in a fog concerning the Father, preparing labors and amnesia and 
fear in order thereby to entice those of the transition and take them captive. 

4. The amnesia of confusion was not made as a revelation, it is not the 
handiwork of the Father. Forgetfulness does not occur under his directive, 
although it does happen because of him. But rather what exists within him is 
acquaintanceship--this being revealed so that forgetfulness might dissolve and 
the Father be recognized. Since amnesia occurred because the Father was not 
recognized, thereafter when the Father is recognized there will be no more 
forgetting.

5. This is the Gospel of him who is sought, which he has revealed to those 
perfected thru the mercies of the Father as the secret mystery: Yeshúa the 
Christ! He enlightened those who were in darkness because of forgetfulness. He 
illumined them. He gave them a path, and that path is the truth which he 
proclaimed. 

6. Therefore confusion was enraged at him and pursued him in order to suppress 
and eliminate him. He was nailed to a tree,* he became the fruit of recognizing 
the Father. Yet it did not cause those who consumed it to perish, but rather to 
those who consumed it he gave a rejoicing at such a discovery. For he found them 
in himself and they found him in themselves--the incomprehensible inconceivable, 
the Father, this perfect-one who created the totality, in whom the totality 
exists and of whom the totality has need. For he had withheld within himself 
their perfection, which he had not yet bestowed upon them all. (*re 
'Gnosticism'; Jn 19:18, 14:20)

7. The Father is not jealous, for what envy could there be between him and his 
members? For if the way of this aeon had prevailed they would not have been able 
to come unto the Father, who retains within himself their fulfillment and 
bestows it upon them as a return to himself with a recognition which is single 
in perfection. It is he who ordained the totality, and the totality is within 
him and the totality had need of him. It is like a person with whom some have 
been unacquainted, yet who desires that they recognize and love him. For what 
did they all lack except acquaintance with the Father? (Jn 14:9)

8. Thus he became a reposeful and leisurely guide in the place of instruction. 
The Logos came to the midst° and spoke as their appointed teacher. There 
approached those who considered themselves wise, putting him to the test--yet he 
shamed them in their vanity. They hated him because they were not truly wise. 
Then after them all there also approached the little children, those who have 
the acquaintance of the Father. Having been confirmed, they learned of the face-
forms° of the Father. They recognized, they were recognized; they were 
glorified, they glorified. Revealed in their heart was the living book of life, 
this which is inscribed in the thought and mind of the Father and which has been 
within his incomprehensibility since before the foundation of the totality. No 
one can take this away, because it was appointed for him who would take it and 
be slain. (Mt 18:10)

9. No one of those who trusted in salvation could have become manifest unless 
this book had come to the midst. This is why the merciful and faithful-one--
Yeshúa!--patiently endured the sufferings in order to take this book, since he 
knew that his death would become life for many. Just as the fortune of the 
deceased master of the estate remains secret until his bequest is opened, so 
also the totality remained hidden so long as the Father of the totality was 
invisible--this-one thru whom all dimensions originate. This is why Yeshúa 
appeared, clothed in that book. (Rev/Ap 5:1-5)

10. He was nailed to a tree in order to publish the edict of the Father on the 
cross.* Oh sublime teaching, such that he humbled himself unto death while clad 
in eternal life! He stripped off the rags of mortality in order to don this 
imperishability which none has the power to take from him. Entering into the 
empty spaces of the terrors, he brought forth those who had been divested by 
amnesia. Acting with recognition and perfection, he proclaimed what is in the 
heart [of the Father, in order to] make wise those who are to receive the 
teaching. Yet those who are instructed are the living, inscribed in this book of 
life, who are taught about themselves and who receive themselves from the Father 
in again returning to him. (*re 'Gnosticism')

11. Because the perfection of the totality is in the Father, it is necessary 
that they all ascend unto him. When someone recognizes, he receives the things 
that are his own and gathers them to himself. For he who is unacquainted has a 
lack--and what he lacks is great, since what he lacks is that which will make 
him perfect. Because the perfection of the totality is in the Father, it is 
necessary that they all ascend unto him. Thus each and every one receives 
himself. (Mt 5:48)

12. He pre-inscribed them, having prepared this gift for those who came forth 
from him. Those whose names he foreknew are all called at the end. Thus someone 
who recognizes has his name spoken by the Father. For he whose name has not been 
spoken remains unacquainted. How indeed can anyone hearken whose name has not 
been called? For he who remains unacquainted until the end is a figment of 
forgetfulness and will vanish with it. Otherwise why indeed is there no name for 
those wretches, and why do they not heed the call?

13. Thus someone with acquaintance is from above. When he is called he hears and 
heeds and returns to him who called, ascending unto him. And he discovers who it 
is that calls him. In recognition he does the will of him who called. He desires 
to please him, and granted repose he receives the name of the One. He who 
recognizes thus discovers from whence he has come and whither he is going. He 
understands like someone who was intoxicated and who has shaken off his 
drunkenness and returned to himself, to set upright those things which are his 
own.

14. He has brought many back from confusion. He went before them into the spaces 
thru which their hearts had migrated in going astray due to the depth of him who 
encompasses all dimensions without himself being encompassed. It is a great 
wonder that they were within the Father without recognizing him, and that they 
were able to depart unto themselves because they could neither comprehend nor 
recognize him in whom they were. For thus his volition had not yet emerged from 
within himself. For he revealed himself so that all his emanations° would 
reunite with him in recognition.

15. This is acquaintance with the living book, whereby at the end he has 
manifested the eternal-ones° as the alphabet of his revelation. These are not 
vowels nor are they consonants, such that someone might read them and think of 
emptiness, but rather they are the true alphabet by which those who recognize it 
are themselves expressed. Each letter is a perfect thought, each letter is like 
a complete book written in the alphabet of unity by the Father, who inscribes 
the eternal-ones so that thru his alphabet they might recognize the Father.

16. His wisdom meditates on the Meaning, his teaching expresses it, his 
acquaintance revealed it, his dignity is crowned by it, his joy unites with it, 
his glory exalted it, his appearance manifested it, his repose received it, his 
love embodied it, his faith embraced it.

17. Thus the Logos of the Father comes into the totality as the fruit of his 
heart and the face-form of his will. But he supports them all, he atones them 
and moreover he assumes the face-form of everyone, purifying them, bringing them 
back--within the Father, within the Mother, Yeshúa of infinite kindness. The 
Father uncovers his bosom, which is the Holy Spirit, revealing his secret. His 
secret is his Son! Thus thru the compassions of the Father the eternal-ones 
recognize him. And they cease their toil of seeking for the Father and repose in 
him, recognizing that this is the repose.

18. Having replenished the deficiency, he dissolved the scheme°. For the scheme 
is this world in which he served as a slave, and deficiency is the place of 
jealousy and quarreling. Yet the place of the unity is perfect. Since deficiency 
occurred because the Father was not recognized, thereafter when the Father is 
recognized there shall be no deficiency. Just as with ignorance, when someone 
comes to know, the ignorance dissolves of itself--and also as darkness 
dissipates when the light shines--so also deficiency vanishes when perfection 
appears. Thus from that moment on there is no more scheme, but rather it 
disappears in the fusion of the unity. For now their involvements are made equal 
in the moment when the fusion perfects the spaces. 

19. Each one shall receive himself in the unification and shall be purified from 
multiplicity into unity in acquaintanceship--consuming matter in himself like a 
flame, darkness with light, and death with life. Since these things have thus 
happened to each one of us, it is appropriate that we think of the totality so 
that the house be holy and silent for the unity.

20. It is like some who move jars from their proper places to unsafe places, 
where they are broken. And yet the master of the house suffered no loss but 
rather rejoiced, for those unsound jars were replaced by these which are fully 
perfect. This is the judgment which has come from above, like a double-edged 
sword drawn to cut this way and that as each one is judged. 

21. There came to the midst the Logos, which is in the heart of those who speak 
it. This was not a mere sound, but rather it was incarnate. A great disturbance 
occurred among the jars--for lo some were emptied, others were filled, some were 
supplied, others were overturned, some were cleansed, others were broken. All of 
the spaces quaked and were agitated, having neither order nor stability. 
Confusion was in anguish at not discerning what to do--distressed and lamenting 
and cropping-hair from understanding nothing. (Lev 19:27, Num 6:5)

22. Then when recognition approached with all its emanations, this was the 
annihilation of confusion which was emptied into nothingness. The truth came to 
the midst, and all his emanations recognized and embraced the Father in truth 
and united with him in a perfect power. For everyone who loves the truth 
attaches himself to the mouth of the Father with his tongue by receiving the 
Holy Spirit. The truth is the mouth of the Father, his language is the Holy 
Spirit joined to him in truth. This is the revelation of the Father and his 
self-manifestation to his eternal-ones. He has revealed his secret, explaining 
it all.

23. For who is the existent-one, except for the Father alone? All dimensions are 
his emanations, recognized in coming forth from his heart like sons from a 
mature person who knows them. Each one whom the Father begets had previously 
received neither form nor name. Then they were formed thru his self-awareness. 
Although indeed they had been in his mind, they had not recognized him. The 
Father however is perfectly acquainted with all the dimensions, which are within 
him. 

24. Whenever he wishes he manifests whomever he wishes, forming him and naming 
him. And in giving him a name, he causes him to come into being. Before they 
came into being, these assuredly were unacquainted with him who fashioned them. 
I do not say however that those who have not yet come into being are nothings--
but rather they pre-exist within him who shall intend their becoming when he 
desires it, like a season yet to come. Before anyone is manifest (the Father) 
knows what he will bring forth. But the fruit that is not yet manifest neither 
recognizes nor accomplishes anything. Thus all dimensions themselves exist 
within the Father who exists, from whom they come forth, and who established 
them unto himself from that which is not. (Th 19)

25. Whoever lacks root also lacks fruit, but still he thinks to himself: 'I have 
become, so I shall decease--for everything that (earlier) did not (yet) exist, 
(later) shall no (longer) exist.' What therefore does the Father desire that 
such a person think about himself?: 'I have been like the shadows and the 
phantoms of the night!' When the dawn shines upon him, this person ascertains 
that the terror which had seized him was nothing. They were thus unacquainted 
with the Father because they did not behold him. Hence there occurred terror and 
turmoil and weakness and doubt and division, with many deceptions and empty 
fictions at work thru these. 

26. It was as if they were sunk in sleep and found themselves in troubled 
dreams--either fleeing somewhere, or powerlessly pursuing others, or delivering 
blows in brawls, or themselves suffering blows, or falling from a high place, or 
sailing thru the air without wings. Sometimes it even seems as if they are being 
murdered although no one pursues them, or as if they themselves are murdering 
their neighbors since they are sullied by their blood.

27. Then the moment comes when those who have endured all this awaken, no longer 
to see all those troubles--for they are naught. Such is the way of those who 
have cast off unacquaintance like sleep and consider it to be nothing, neither 
considering its various events as real, but rather leaving it behind like a 
dream of the night. Recognizing the Father brings the dawn! This is what each 
one has done, sleeping in the time when he was unacquainted. And this is how, 
thus awakened, he comes to recognition. (Isa 29:7-8)

28. How good for the person who returns to himself and awakens, and blest be 
this-one who has opened the eyes of the blind! And the Spirit ran after him, 
resurrecting him swiftly. Extending her hand to him who was prostrate on the 
ground, she lifted him up on his feet who had not yet arisen. Now the 
recognition which gives understanding is thru the Father and the revelation of 
his Son. Once they have seen him and heard him, he grants them to taste and to 
smell and to touch the beloved Son. (the five senses; Th 19)

29. When he appeared, telling them about the incomprehensible Father, he 
breathed into them* what is in the thought of doing his will. Many received the 
light and returned to him. But the materialists were alien and did not behold 
his likeness nor recognize him, although he came forth incarnate** in form. 
Nothing obstructs his course--for imperishability is indomitable. Moreover he 
proclaimed beforehand that which was new, expressing what is in the heart of the 
Father and bringing forth the flawless Logos. (*see Jn 20:22, EMFUSAW; **re 
'Gnosticism', Jn 1:14)

30. Light spoke thru his mouth, and his voice gave birth to life. He gave to 
them the thought of wisdom, of mercy, of salvation, of the spirit of power from 
the infinity and the kindness of the Father. He abolished punishment and 
torment, for these caused some who had need of mercy to go astray from his face 
in confusion and bondage. And with power he pardoned them, and he humbled them 
in acquaintanceship. (Jn 8:2-11)

31. He became a path for those who had strayed, acquaintance for the unaware, 
discovery for those who seek, stability for the wavering, and immaculate purity 
for those who were defiled. 

32. He is the shepherd who left behind the 99 sheep which were not lost, in 
order to go searching for this-one which had strayed. And he rejoiced when he 
found it. For 99 is a number that is counted° on the left hand, which tallies 
it. But when 1 is added, the entire sum passes to the right hand. So it is with 
him who lacks the One, which is the entire right hand--he takes from the left 
what is deficient in order to transfer it to the right, and thus the number 
becomes 100. Now, the signification of what is in these words is the Father. (Mt 
18:12-13, Th 107)

33. Even on the Sabbath he labored for the sheep which he found fallen into the 
pit. He restored the sheep to life, bringing it up from the pit, so that you 
Sons of heart-understanding may discern this Sabbath on which the work of 
salvation must never cease, and so that you may speak from this day which is 
above, which has no night, and from the perfect light which never sets. (Mt 
12:11, Th 27, Ph 142)

34. Speak therefore from your hearts, for you are this perfect day and within 
you dwells this abiding light. Speak of the truth with those who seek it, and of 
acquaintanceship unto those who in confusion have transgressed. Support those 
who stumble, reach out your hand to the sick, feed those who are hungry, give 
repose to the weary, uplift those who yearn to arise, awaken those who sleep--
for you are the wisdom that rescues!

35. Thus strength grows in action. Give heed to yourselves--be not concerned 
with those other things which you have already cast out of yourselves. Do not 
return to what you have regurgitated, be not moth-eaten, be not worm-eaten--for 
you have already cast that out. Do not become a place for the devil, for you 
have already eliminated him. Do not reinforce those things that made you stumble 
and fall. Thus is uprightness! 

36. For someone who violates the Torah harms himself more than the judgement 
harms him. For he does his deeds illicitly, whereas he who is righteous does his 
deeds for others. Do therefore the will of the Father, because you are from him. 
For the Father is kind, and things are good thru his will. He has taken 
cognizance of whatever is yours, so that you may repose yourselves about such 
things--for in their fruition it is recognized whose they are. (Jn 16:28, Lk 
6:43-44)

37. The Sons of the Father are his fragrance, for they are from the grace of his 
face. Therefore the Father loves his fragrance and manifests it everywhere. And 
blending it with matter, he bestows his fragrance upon the light, and in his 
repose he exalts it over every likeness and every sound. For it is not the ears 
that inhale the fragrance, but rather the breath (spirit) has the sense of smell 
and draws it to oneself--and thus is someone baptized in the fragrance of the 
Father. 

38. Thus he brings it to harbor, drawing his original fragrance which had grown 
cold unto the place from which it came. It was something which in psychic form 
had become like cold water permeating loose soil, such that those who see it 
think it to be dirt. Then afterwards, when a warm and fragrant breeze blows, it 
again evaporates. Thus coldness results from separation. This is why the 
faithful-one came--to abolish division and bring the warm fullness of love, so 
that the cold would not return but rather there should be the unification of 
perfect thought. This is the Logos of the Gospel of the finding of the fullness 
by those who await the salvation which comes from on high. Prolonged is the hope 
of those who await--those whose likeness is the light which contains no shadow--
at that time when the fullness finally comes. 

39. The deficiency of matter did not originate thru the infinity of the Father, 
who came in the time of inadequacy--although no one could say that the 
indestructible would arrive in this manner. But the profundity of the Father 
abounded, and the thought of confusion was not with him. It is a topic for 
falling prostrate, it is a reposeful topic--to be set upright on one's feet, in 
being found by this-one who came to bring him back. For the return is called: 
Metanoia°! (Mk 1:4, 15)

40. This is why imperishability breathed forth--to follow after the transgressor 
so that he might have repose. For to forgive is to remain behind with the light, 
the Logos of the fullness, in the deficiency. Thus the physician hastens to the 
place where there is illness, for this is the desire of his heart. But he who 
has a lack cannot hide it from him who has what he needs. Thus the fullness, 
which has no deficiency, replenishes the lack.

41. (The Father) gave of himself to replenish whomever lacks, in order that 
thereby he may receive grace. In the time of his deficiency he had no grace. 
Thus wherever grace is absent, there is inferiority. At the time when he 
received this smallness which he lacked, (then the Father) revealed to him a 
fullness, which is this finding of the light of truth that dawned upon him in 
unchangeability. This is why the Christ was invoked in their midst--so that they 
would receive their returning. He anoints with the Chrism those who have been 
troubled. The anointing is the compassion of the Father who will have mercy upon 
them. Yet those whom he has anointed are those who are perfected. 

42. For jars which are full are those which are sealed°. Yet when its sealant is 
destroyed, a jar leaks. And the cause of its being emptied is the absence of its 
sealant. For then something in the dynamics of the air evaporates it. But that 
is not emptied from which no sealant has been removed, nor does anything leak 
away, but rather the perfect Father replenishes whatever is lacking. 

43. He is good. He knows his seedlings, for it is he who planted them in his 
paradise. Now his paradise is his realm of repose. This is the perfection in the 
thought of the Father, and these are the logoi° of his meditation. Each one of 
his logoi is the product of his unitary will in the revelation of his meaning. 
While they were still in the depths of his thought, the Logos was the first to 
come forth. Furthermore he revealed them from a mind that expresses the unique 
Logos in the silent grace called thought, since they existed therein prior to 
being revealed. So it occurred that (the Logos) was the first to come forth at 
the time when it pleased the will of him who intended it. (Jn 1:1)

44. Now the will of the Father is that which reposes in his heart and pleases 
him. Nothing exists without him, nor does anything occur without the volition of 
the Father. (Ps 139:16, Jn 5:19) But his will is unfathomable. (Isa 40:13) His 
will is his imprint, and none can determine it nor anticipate it in order to 
control it. But whenever he wills, what he wills exists--even if the sight does 
not please them. They are nothing before the face of God and the will of the 
Father. For he knows the beginning and the ending of them all--at their end he 
shall question them face-to-face. Yet the ending is to receive acquaintance with 
this-one who was hidden. Now this is the Father--this-one from whom the 
beginning came forth, this-one to whom all these shall return who came forth 
from him. Yet they have been manifest for the glory and joy of his name. (Th 77)

45. Now the name of the Father is the Son. He first named him who came forth 
from himself, and who is himself. And he begot him as a Son. He bestowed his own 
name upon him. It is the Father who from his heart possesses all things. He has 
the name, he has the Son who can be seen. Yet his name is transcendental--for it 
alone is the mystery of the invisible, which thru him comes to ears completely 
filled with it. (Mt 1:21, Lk 1:31, Jn 17:6-26!, Ph 11)

46. For indeed the name of the Father is not spoken, yet rather it is manifested 
as a Son. Accordingly, great is the name! Who therefore could proclaim a name 
for him, the supreme name, except him alone whose name this is, together with 
the Sons of the Name?--those in whose heart the name of the Father reposes and 
who themselves likewise repose in his name. Because the Father is unchangeable, 
it is he alone who begot him as his own name before he fashioned the eternal-
ones, so that the name of the Father would be Lord over their heads--this-one 
who is truly the name, secure in his command of perfect power. (Ex 3:14, Th 13)

47. The name is not mere wordage, nor is it only terminology, but rather it is 
transcendental. He alone named him, he alone seeing him, he alone having the 
power to give him a name. Whoever does not exist has no name--for what names are 
given to the non-existent? But this existing-one exists together with his name. 
And the Father alone knows him, and he alone names him.

48. The Son is his name. He did not keep him hidden as a secret--but rather the 
Son came to be, and (the Father) alone named him. Thus the name belongs to the 
Father, such that the name of the Father is the Son. How otherwise would 
compassion find a name, except from the Father? For after all, anyone will say 
to his companion: 'Whoever could give a name to someone who existed before him?-
-as if children do not thus receive their names thru those who gave them birth!'

49. Firstly, therefore, it is appropriate that we think on this topic: what is 
the name? Truly (the Son) is the name--thus also he is the name from the Father. 
He is the existent name of the Lord. Thus he did not receive the name on loan as 
do others, according to the pattern of each one who is to be created in his 
heart. For he is the Lordly Name. There is no one else who bestowed it upon him, 
but he was unnamable and it was ineffable until the time when He who is Perfect 
gave expression to him alone. And it is he who has the power to express his name 
and to see him. Thus it pleased him in his heart that his desired name be his 
Son, and he gave the name to him--this-one who came forth from the profundity. 

50. He expressed his secret, knowing that the Father is benevolent. This is 
exactly why he brought this-one forth--so that he might speak of the realm and 
his place of repose from which he came, and render glory to the fullness, the 
majesty of his name, and the kindness of the Father. He shall speak of the realm 
from which each one came--and each one who issued from that place shall thus be 
hastened to return unto it again, to share in receiving his substance in the 
place where he stood, receiving the taste of that place, receiving nourishment 
and growth. And his own realm of repose is his fullness.

51. Thus all the emanations of the Father are plenitudes, and the source of all 
his emanations is within the heart of Him from whom they all flourish. He 
bestowed their destinies upon them. (Ps 139:16!, Jn 5:19!) Thus is each one made 
manifest, such that thru their own meditation they [return to] the place to 
which they direct their thought. That place is their source, which lifts them 
thru all the heights of heaven unto the Father. They attain unto his head, which 
becomes their repose. And they are embraced as they approach him, so that they 
say that they have partaken of his face in kisses. Yet they are not thus made 
manifest by exalting themselves. They neither lack the glory of the Father, nor 
do they think of him as being trite or bitter or wrathful. But rather he is 
benevolent, imperturbable and kind--knowing all the dimensionalities before they 
come into existence, and having no need of edification.

52. This is the form of those who themselves belong on high thru the grandeur of 
the immeasurable, as they await the single and perfect-one who makes himself 
there for them. And they do not descend unto the abode of the dead°. They have 
neither jealousy nor lamentation nor mortality there among them, but rather they 
repose in him who is reposeful. They are neither troubled nor devious concerning 
the truth, but rather they themselves are the truth. The Father is within them 
and they are within the Father, perfected and made indivisible in the truly 
good, not inadequate in anything but rather given repose and refreshed in the 
Spirit. And they shall obey their source in leisure, these in whom his root is 
found and who harm no soul. This is the place of the blest, this is their place! 
(Jn 17:21-23, Ph 102)

53. Wherefore let the remainder understand in their places that it is not 
appropriate for me, having been in the realm of repose, to say anything further. 
But it is within his heart that I shall be--forever devoted to the Father of the 
totality, together with those true Brothers upon whom pours the love of the 
Father and among whom there is no lack of him. These are they who are genuinely 
manifest, being in the true and eternal life and speaking the perfect light 
which is filled with the seed of the Father, and who are in his heart and in the 
fullness and in whom his Spirit rejoices, glorifying him in whom they exist. He 
is good, and his Sons are perfect and worthy of his name. For it is children of 
this kind that he the Father desires.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

NOTES TO TRUTH

	The translation of the Gospel of Truth is concordant with that of Thomas 
and Philip, and therefore words discussed in the notes there are not duplicated 
here.

Count (32): this refers to the ancient technique of finger-calculation, whereby 
numbers 1->99 were counted on the left hand but from 100 upward on the right 
hand; the number 100 itself was formed by touching the right forefinger-tip to 
the upper joint of the thumb (the Hindus call such a symbolic hand-posture a 
'mudra')

Dead, Abode of (52): Coptic EMNTE (west: as the place of entering the 
underworld) =  Hebrew SHEOL (plead) = Greek AIDHS (hades: 'unseen')

Emanation (14): Coptic †H; Grobel (Bibliography #13, above) convincingly shows 
that this term alludes to the Neo-Platonic notion of divine radiation, wherein 
all beings are likened to sunbeams emanating from the one God

Eternal-Ones (15): see Aeon in Ph Notes; all creatures considered as eternal, 
relative to the trans-dimensional mind of God (Lk 20:38, Jn 6:54, 'Angel and 
Image', below)

Face-Form (8): Coptic MOUNG N.%O (form of face); see Emanation (here the idea 
seems similar to that expressed in those extraordinary Hindu religious paintings 
which show all men and creatures as countless manifestations of one 
transcendental Deity [the Brahman]--this metaphysic is found in the Upanishads 
and the Bhagavad Gita)

Logoi (43): Greek LOGOI; this is the plural of LOGOS (see Saying/Meaning in Th 
Notes), indicating that each Son-or-Daughter of God is a divine Logos like unto 
the Savior (see Lk 6:40 with Jn 1:1 & Th 108, also Ph 133 where John the Baptist 
is quoted as Logos!)

Metanoia (39): see Rethink in Th Notes

Midst (8): Coptic MHTE (amidst, in transition, hence this transitory world); see 
Transition in Ph Notes and in Tr 3

Recognize (1): see Recognition in Ph Notes, Hos 6:6, Mt 5:8

Scheme (18): Greek SXHMA (form, plan, appearance as opposed to the substantial 
reality)

Seal (42): Coptic TBBE; a sealant such as retsina, used to affix the top onto a 
jar/amphora to make it airtight (perhaps led to the tradition of retsina 
flavoring in Greek wine)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

THE FEMALE SPIRIT

 	In a remarkable entry of the Philip Gospel, particular attention is drawn 
to the fact that 'spirit' is a feminine concept in the Semitic languages 
(Hebrew: RUAKH): 'Some say that Mariam was impregnated by the Holy Spirit. They 
are confused, they know not what they say. Whenever was a female impregnated by 
a female?' (Ph 18) And indeed this fundamental point, traditionally obscured in 
scriptural translation and ignored by commentators, recurs thematically in both 
Thomas and Philip as well as the Gospel of Truth. It clearly has the most far-
reaching theological implications.
	Suffice it to recall that PNEUMA in Greek is neuter and PARAKLHTOS 
masculine, while SPIRITUS and ADVOCATUS in Latin are both masculine in gender. 
Hence starting from the earliest versions of both the Old and New Testaments in 
non-Semitic tongues, the very point was lost which Philip is here emphasizing. 
Thus for example we have 'el Espíritu' instead of 'la Espíritu' in Spanish, 'der 
Geist' in place of 'die Geist' in German, and in English 'he/him' in place of 
'she/her' referring to the Helpmate (Hebrew: ME-NAKHEM; participle, and thus 
without gender) in Jn 16:7 ff.
	We need hardly remind ourselves of the confusions, schisms and even 
religious machismo to which this gender-shift has given rise across the 
centuries, as theologians struggled to make sense of a presumably all-male 
Trinity Thus most notably the Orthodox/Catholic rupture of 1054 AD resulted from 
a controversy about the 'procession' of the third member of the Trinity. With 
the Holy Spirit as a female figure, however, the underlying idea is considerably 
elucidated: Father God and Mother Spirit and Incarnate Son as the basic mystery 
of three-in-one, the threefold Godhead. Here the concept is clearly that of a 
transcendental holy family, in which the divine Christ-Child--and indeed each 
child (Mt 18:10, Jn 11:52)--is eternally born of the mystical union between the 
paternal and maternal aspects of the selfsame Divinity:

Paternal____________Maternal
        \          /
         \   GOD  /
          \      /
           \    /
            \  /
             \/
           Filial

	Herewith are the other passages in Thomas, Philip and Valentine which 
directly concern this topic: My mother [bore] me, yet [my] true [Mother] gave me 
the life. (Th 101; cf. also 15 & 46) In the days when we were Hebrews we were 
orphans, having only our Mother. Yet when we become Messianics the Father joins 
with the Mother. (Ph 6) She alone is the truth. She makes the many, and for us 
she teaches this alone in love through many. (Ph 12) His (true) Mother, Sister 
and Mate is called 'Mariam'. (Ph 36) A Disciple one day made request of the Lord 
for something worldly; he said to him: Request of thy Mother and she will give 
to thee from what belongs to another. (Ph 38) Wisdom is barren [without] the 
Son--hence she is called [his Mother]. But in the place of salt [...] the Holy 
Spirit has many Sons. (Ph 40) The wisdom which humans call barren is the Mother 
of the Angels. (Ph 59) She is the One who is above. (Ph 74) Adam came into being 
through two virgins--through the Spirit and through the virgin earth. (Ph 90) 
The Mother is the truth, yet recognition is the union. (Ph 116) He assumes the 
face-form of every one, purifying them, bringing them back--within the Father, 
within the Mother, Yeshúa of infinite kindness. The Father uncovers his bosom, 
which is the Holy Spirit, revealing his secret. His secret is his Son! (Tr 17)
	In numerous entries in the latter part of Philip, reference is then made 
to the holy NUMFWN or bridal-chamber wherein the Son is born of the mystical 
union of the Father with the Spirit--thus for example: "If it is appropriate to 
tell a mystery, the Father of the totality mated with the Virgin who had come 
down--and a fire shone for him on that day. He revealed the great Bridal-Bed. 
Thus his body came into being on that day. He came forth in the Bridal-Bed as 
one issuing from the Bridegroom with the Bride. This is how Yeshúa established 
the essence of the totality." (Ph 89) That primal mystery is then celebrated in 
the apostolic sacrament of the holy Bridal-Chamber (KHEDER HA-QODESH).
	It will be of value to list here the fourteen female Disciples who appear 
in the scripture: (1) the Virgin Mariam, also called the mother of Joseph and 
Jacob [Mt 13:55, 28:1, Mk 15:40, Ac 1:14], (2) Mariam the sister of Yeshúa [Ph 
36], (3) Mariam Magdalene [passim], (4) Mariam the wife of Cleopas [Lk 24:18, Jn 
19:25], (5) Mariam the mother of John Mark [Ac 12:12], (6,7) Mariam & Martha of 
Bethany [Lk 10:38-42, Jn 11], (8) the sister of the Virgin [Jn 19:25], (9) 
Salome [Mk 15:40, 16:1, Th 61b], (10) Susanna [Lk 8:2], (11) Johanna wife of 
Chuza [Lk 8:2, 24:10], (12) the wife of Zebedee [Mt 20:20-23, 28:56], (13) 
Tabitha [Ac 9:36-43], and (14) Rhoda [Ac 12:13-17]. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

ANGEL AND IMAGE

Th 5 19 22 50 52 76 83 84 91 111
Ph 26 30 47 65 71 81 85 93 95 112 130 143
see Mt 18:10 & Jn 5:19

	The extraordinary angel/image analysis contained in these passages 
proposes replacing [a] the 'worldly' frame of reference (paradigm, model, 
vocabulary) with [b] a 'celestial' frame of reference (paradigm, model, 
vocabulary). According to the former, we are living bodies in a material 
universe; according to the latter, we are eternal spirits in the mind of God, 
contemplating his imagination in our five senses.
	In his superlative study, Claude Tresmontant presents "the Hebrew 
conception of the sensible insofar as it differs from the Greek: the biblical 
world is a world in which the idea of 'matter' does not occur.... Hebrew is a 
very concrete language.... It has no word for 'matter' nor for 'body' [as 
contrasted with 'soul'], because these concepts do not cover any empirical 
realities. Nobody ever saw any 'matter' nor a 'body', such as they are defined 
by substantial dualism. The sensible elements--wood, iron, water--are not 
'matter'; they are sensible realities." (Bibliography #16, above)
	Starting with this implicit axiom that there can be no such thing as 
'matter' (that being an essentially non-referential term), the texts proceed to 
designate our entire sensory field as 'imagery' (including memories, emotions 
and fantasies, as well as those perceptions which comprise one's individual 
incarnation). This whole realm--the entire film, so to speak, of everyone's 
life--is then reinterpreted by the Logos to be our immediate personal perception 
of the transcendental imagination of God (so Gen 1:26, 'in our imagination and 
likeness'). There is a lovely word-play here on EIKWN: our sensory images are 
themselves holy icons.
	One's correspondingly-juxtaposed and eternally-witnessing individual ego--
space and time being merely relations among the images--is then designated as an 
'angel' (or 'Child of God'). Thus it is said that we the angels contemplate, 
manifest (or 'mirrored') in our very perceptions, the imagination of the 
Spiritual Father/Mother--of whose union we are eternally born.
	Such an analysis has significant parallels with George Berkeley's 
philosophy of Subjective Idealism, Ludwig Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-
Philosophicus (5.6->5.641) and Notebooks 1914-1916 (7.VIII.16 & 2.IX.16), Martin 
Buber's I and Thou, Hans Reichenbach's The Philosophy of Space & Time (Dover 
Books, New York, n/d), and much traditional Oriental thought--Hindu, Buddhist, 
and Taoist.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
THE PAUL PARADOX

PERIPATWMEN KATA TAS ENTOLAS AUTOU (II-Jn 6)

I

	Those who study the New Testament may well note the fact that popular 
'red-letter' editions of the text, with Christ's words thus highlighted, contain 
virtually no such rubrics throughout the Epistles of Paul. With the sole 
exception of the eucharistic formula at I-Cor 11:24-25, he does not quote any 
sayings of the historical Yeshúa/Jesus. Indeed furthermore, he never even once 
alludes to the detailed biographical panorama, from the Nativity up to the 
Passion, which fills the pages of the canonical Gospels. This is, on the face of 
it, a most puzzling omission.
	Beyond this remarkable lack of historical concern, however, there is an 
even more enigmatic aspect of Paul's record in the New Testament. For an 
objective, philosophical reading of the documents would seem to reveal a number 
of logical contradictions, both within his biography and also between his 
theology and that of the Evangelists. It must be emphasized that these anomalies 
are conceptual rather than factual in nature. For although they of course occur 
in interwoven historical, theological, and normative contexts within the NT, 
they nevertheless present themselves as a priori problems of analytical 
consistency between various texts--regardless of the truth or falsity of any 
factual claims being made or presumed by those texts. Furthermore, these 
discrepancies must be similarly distinguished from logically posterior issues 
concerning the ancient composition, editing, redactions, or dating of the New 
Testament writings, all of which are factual/historical topics. 
	In sum, and stated more formally: the Pauline antinomies are logical 
contradictions and therefore cannot in principle be resolved by means of either 
historical investigation or textual criticism, both of which are empirical 
methodologies.
	Neither is this the place to provide a retrospective survey of the many 
past commentaries on these complex questions. I shall only append a series of 
quotations from a number of modern figures--starting with Santa Teresa of Ávila 
and John Locke--who are in general agreement that Paul's views appear to be 
seriously at odds with the Gospel message. These excerpts suffice to show that 
what might be called 'the Paul paradox' has been recognized by a remarkably wide 
spectrum of eminent individuals in recent times.  

II

	Here then is the matrix of antinomies, along with a brief statement of 
what I take to be the logical contradiction in each case:

1. Ac 9:7 || Ac 22:9
	In the propositional calculus of modern logic, 'p & not-q' is the truth-
functional negation of 'q & not-p'. Thus 'they heard but did not see' directly 
contradicts 'they saw but did not hear'. Yet this famous event on the Damascus 
road was the original justification for Paul's supposed commission in 
independence of Peter/Cephas and the other Apostles.

2. Ac 9:26-29 || Gal 1:17-2:1
	Did Paul then travel immediately--or seventeen years later!--from Damascus 
to Jerusalem in order to meet with the entire Apostolic circle? 

3. Ac 1:15 || I-Cor 15:6
	How can Christ have appeared to over 500 Brothers at a time (prior to the 
ascension) when the whole Discipleship numbered only 120?

4. Mt 10:2&40, 16:15-19 || Gal 2:11-13
	The explicit designation of Simon Peter as the foremost Apostle, with all 
the delegated authority of the Lord himself, logically precludes any other 
Disciple or Apostle opposing him 'to his face' and calling him a hypocrite.

5. Mt 28:16-20, Ac 10:1-11:18 || Gal 2:6-9
	The Gospel doctrine is clearly that, after the resurrection, the remaining 
eleven Apostles were sent forth to evangelize the whole world. Paul nevertheless 
claims to be the one and only Apostle to the gentiles ('the' Apostle as he is 
often called), while Peter and the others according to this view were to be 
restricted to proselytizing among the Jews.

6. Mt 5:48, Jn 1:14, 6:53-56 || Rom 8:8
	The incarnation of the Logos, and also the injunction to be perfect, 
entail that those who are in the flesh can indeed please God. 

7. Lk 24:36-43, Jn 11:43-44, 20:27, Ac 1:9-11, Ph 25 || I-Cor 15:50
	The evangelists proclaim an incarnate resurrection and parousia (second 
coming), whereas Paul takes an anti-corporeal, gnostic position.

8. Lk 4:5-8, Jn 18:36, 19:18, Ac 4:26 (Ps 2:2) || Rom 13:1-5
	The heavenly kingdom is described in the Gospels as of another order from 
the entire realm of the nations, which are ruled by Satan and whereby Christ was 
crucified. On the other hand, the secular authorities with their weaponry 
(including Mk 16:15 ff.??) are stated by Paul to be God's own army. 

9. Mt 22:21 || Ac 25:11
	Christ cedes taxes to Caesar, Paul cedes his personal security to him 
(Nero, no less!).

10. Dt 23:15-16, Mt 23:10-12, Jn 8:31-36 || Col 4:1, I-Tim 6:1-2, Philem 10-19
	The re-conceptualization in the Gospels promises to emancipate the 
believers from oppressive relationships, while Paul literally endorses slavery 
within the Discipleship.

11. Mt 12:46-50, 23:8-9, Lk 14:25-26, Jn 1:12-13, 3:1-8, 11:52 || Col 3:18-21, 
I-Tim 5:8
	Christ teaches that family ties are to be renounced in favor of--that is, 
replaced by--the Father/Motherhood of God together with the Brother/Sisterhood 
of their incarnate Sons and Daughters, while Paul adamantly defends the 
traditional family structure.

12. Mt 19:10-12, Lk 14:20-26, 18:28-30, 20:34-36 || I-Cor 7:2-16 & 9:5 (?!), Eph 
5:22-24, I-Tim 3:1-4:3
	The Gospels stipulate that those worthy of salvation must transcend 
matrimony (note that Lk 18:28-30 occurs after Lk 4:38-39). Paul notwithstanding 
permits a continuation of marriage among the Disciples. 

13. Num 6:5, Lev 19:27, Mt 2:23 (Jud 13:5), Tr 21 || I-Cor 11:14
	The Hebrew tradition was that long hair on male or female is a sign of 
holiness and special devotion to God. Indeed the word at Mt 2:23 is NAZWRAIOS 
(the LXX or Septuagint term for Nazirite), not NAZARHNOS (i.e. someone from 
Nazareth). Were not John the Baptist and Christ both thus consecrated from 
birth? 

14. Mt 6:24-34, 10:8, Mk 10:13-31, Lk 14:28-33, Ac 4:32-36 || I-Cor 11:34, II-
Thes 3:6-12
	Christ decrees a cessation of working for mammon, giving all private 
possessions to the poor and living thereafter communally--childlike and without 
anxiety day-to-day like the birds and the flowers, with all shared possessions 
being distributed equitably among those who have need--thus lifting the curse of 
toil from mankind (Gen 3:17-19). Paul's advice is to 'eat at home' and avoid 
idlers, who must either work or go hungry.

15. Mk 7:14-23, Lk 7:34 || Rom 14:21, I-Cor 8:13
	Either we ought, or we ought not, to observe some particular diet for 
religious reasons. Yet Paul agrees with neither the OT's dietary rules (kashrut) 
nor the Savior's remarkable midrash (commentary) thereupon.

16. Mt 12:19 (Isa 42:2), Lk 10:7 || Ac 17:16-34, 20:20 
	Paul preaches house-to-house, as well as in the streets and squares--
contrary to Christ's paradigm. 

17. Mt 6:5-6 || I-Tim 2:8 
	Paul demands the very same outspoken prayer which Christ condemns as 
exhibitionist. 

18. Mt 18:1-4, Mk 9:33-35, Lk 14:7-11 || II-Cor 11:5-12:13
	Paul's recounting of his travels is insubordinately boastful and 
rivalrous--rather than humble, respectful and obedient--toward those who 
preceded him in the Discipleship.

19. Mt 5:43-48, 7:1-5, 9:10-13, 18:21-35, Jn 8:2-11 || I-Cor 5, Gal 5:12, Tit 
3:10-11
	The Gospel attitude toward wrongdoers is merciful, yet Paul's is frankly 
inquisitional. Is 'turning someone over to Satan for the extermination of the 
flesh' intended to mean delivering him to the secular authorities for execution 
(as in Jn 19:17-18)? Are we to love our enemies or excoriate them?

20. Mt 23:8-12 || Ac 20:28, I-Cor 4:15, I-Tim 3:1-13
	Paul introduces the terms 'father' and 'deacon' and 'bishop' to designate 
religious leaders--the very sort of title (along with 'pastor', 'minister', 
etc.) which Christ had explicitly prohibited. Indeed, the passage in Matthew 
would seem to preclude any kind of hierarchy in the Discipleship other than 
simple seniority (thus PRESBUTEROS, 'elder', in Ac 21:18, Jas 5:14, I-Pet 5:1, 
II-Jn 1--by which criterion Paul was obliged to submit to the original Apostles, 
quite contrary to II-Cor 11:5 & Gal 2:6).

21. Gen 17:10, Lk 2:21 || Ac 16:3 (?!), Phlp 3:2, Gal 5:2, Tit 1:10-11
	Saying that it is necessary 'to gag (EPISTOMIZEIN) circumcisionist dogs' 
is completely out of place in an Apostolic context. In any event, even if Christ 
referred to that custom parabolically--as in Th 53--he certainly did not forbid 
its physical practice. 

22. Lk 11:27-28, Jn 4:1-30, 11:20-35, 20:11-18, Th 21 || I-Cor 14:33-35, I-Tim 
2:11-15
	Various women speak up boldly to the Savior. Later, Mariam Magdalene as 
first witness (!) of the resurrection is sent by Christ to angel (AGGELLW: p66* 
Aleph* A B) his rising to the other Disciples and to the Apostles themselves. 
This is not a teaching of female submissiveness or keeping quiet in the 
convocation.

23. Lk 7:36-8:3, 10:38-42, 23:55-24:11, Jn 12:1-3, Th 61b, 114 || I-Cor 7:1-2, 
Eph 5:22-24 
	The Gospels represent women as an intimate part of Christ's entourage--
thus rescinding the punishment of husband-domination in Gen 3:16. Paul 
emphatically opposes any liberated role for females.

24. Mt 5:17-19, 19:16-19, Lk 16:29-31, Ac 21:17-24! || Rom 7:6, Gal 3:10, 5:18
	If the entire Torah--the decalogue in particular, but also the remaining 
mitzvot (moral rules) such as Lev 19:18 et passim--is in effect until sky and 
earth pass away, then it is not an obsolete curse from which believers are 
discharged. This was the very topic at issue when, after he completed his three 
missionary journeys, 'all of the Elders' (!) in Jerusalem required Paul to take 
the Nazirite vow--to prove his continuing adherence to the Mosaic Law.

25. Mt 7:21, 19:16-19, 25:31-46, Jn 13:34!, 14:21, 15:10, Jas 2:14-26 || Rom 
3:28, 10:9, I-Cor 15:35-44
	Christ says that one's calling him 'Lord' is not enough, but rather that 
the Disciple's total obedience is required; both the OT and the Gospels require 
adherence to a plenitude of divine commandments with resultant fruitful deeds. 
Paul on the other hand states that a mere confession of faith, along with a 
belief in Christ's (merely spiritual, not corporeal) resurrection, suffices--a 
thoroughly antinomian doctrine. (This subject must be carefully distinguished 
from that of forgiveness--both among humans and between God and humankind--as a 
pre-eminently innovative tenet in the Gospels. For of course absolution 
logically presupposes a transgression of the rules, not their abrogation; 
compare e.g. Ezek 18 with Mt 6:14-15.)

26. Gen 49, Jud 2:16 ff., Mt 19:28, Ac 1:13-26, Rev/Ap 2:2, 21:14 || I-Cor 9:1-
2, II-Cor 11:5-13
	Finally, we must observe the fact that the permanent tally of the Apostles 
was established by the Savior at exactly twelve (for obvious reasons of 
historical symbolism--note the symmetry at Rev/Ap 21:12-14), and moreover that 
Paul was never numbered in that circle. 

III

	The canon of the New Testament was not ecclesiastically established until 
the Third Council of Carthage in 397 AD. Precisely what transpired during the 
preceding four centuries is notoriously obscure, as the original Gospel 
Messianics were eventually supplanted by the Pauline 'Christians' (Ac 11:25-26)-
-see in this regard Walter Bauer's epochal study, Orthodoxy and Heresy in 
Earliest Christianity (Tübingen 1934, Philadelphia 1971). 
	My purpose has been merely to format a set of scriptural dichotomies which 
exhibit the underlying logic of the ancient Messianic/Paulianity schism, as 
essentially a conceptual (and of course personal) rather than a factual issue. 
This in turn may hopefully serve to stimulate a discussion both of the apostolic 
status of Saul of Tarsus and of his inclusion in the canon. 
	These basic issues can be neither papered over nor settled by 
institutional fiat. For their illuminating implication is that traditional 
Christianity--as defined by the classical NT canon including both Gospels and 
Epistles--is logically self-contradictory and hence inherently unstable. Or, in 
a contemporary analogy, we might say that Paul's writings are like a computer 
virus: a 'theological virus' which, downloaded with the Gospels, completely 
changes the latter program, rendering it not gibberish but rather transmuted 
into another doctrine altogether. In order to avoid such dilemmas, one or the 
other component must be omitted and 'the Discipleship' specified in terms either 
of the evangelists or of Paul, but not both. The corresponding primal community 
centering on the historical Christ and Simon Peter may then for the sake of 
clarity be distinguished as 'Messianics' or 'Christics' or 'Apostolics'. And how 
exhilarating it has to be, one must remark, to mount above those lowlands of 
Pauline smog, up to the clear heights of the simple Gospel message!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Appendix: Modern Quotations regarding Paul
(in chronological order of original publication date)

Santa Teresa of Ávila, Accounts of Conscience, XVI (1571): It seemed to me that, 
concerning what St. Paul says about the confinement of women--which has been 
stated to me recently, and even previously I had heard that this could be the 
will of God--[the Lord] said to me: 'Tell them not to follow only one part of 
the Scripture, to look at others, and [see] if they will perchance be able to 
tie my hands.'

John Locke, The Reasonableness of Christianity (1695): It is not in the epistles 
we are to learn what are the fundamental articles of faith, where they are 
promiscuously and without distinction mixed with other truths.... We shall find 
and discern those great and necessary points best in the preaching of our Savior 
and the Apostles ... out of the history of the evangelists.

Thomas Morgan, The Moral Philosopher (1737-40): St. Paul then, it seems, 
preach'd another and quite different Gospel from what was preach'd by Peter and 
the other Apostles.

Peter Annet, Critical Examination of the Life of St. Paul (letter to Gilbert 
West, 1746): We should never finish, were we to relate all the contradictions 
which are to be found in the writings attributed to St. Paul.... Generally 
speaking it is St. Paul ... that ought to be regarded as the true founder of 
Christian theology,... which from its foundation has been incessantly agitated 
by quarrels [and] divisions.

Voltaire, Philosophical Dictionary, 'Paul' (Varberg edition, 1765): Paul did not 
join the nascent society of the Christians, which at that time was half-
Jewish.... Is it possible to excuse Paul for having reprimanded Peter?... What 
would be thought today of a man who intended to live at our expense, he and his 
woman, judge us, punish us, and confound the guilty with the innocent?

Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776): Judaizing 
Christians seem to have argued with some degree of plausibility from the divine 
origin of the Mosaic law ... that the Messiah himself, and his disciples who 
conversed with him on earth, instead of authorizing by their example the most 
minute observances of the Mosaic law, would [like Paul] have published to the 
world the abolition of those useless and obsolete ceremonies.

Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Characteristics of the Present Age (1806): [The] 
Christian System ... [is] a degenerate form of Christianity, and the authorship 
of which ... [must be] ascribed to the Apostle Paul. 

Thomas Jefferson, 'Letter to William Short' (1820): Paul was the ... first 
corrupter of the doctrines of Jesus.

Jeremy Bentham, Not Paul But Jesus (1823): It rests with every professor of the 
religion of Jesus to settle with himself, to which of the two religions, that of 
Jesus or that of Paul, he will adhere.

Ferdinand Christian Baur, 'The Christ Party in the Corinthian Church, the 
Opposition between Petrine and Pauline Christianity in the Ancient Church, and 
the Apostle Peter in Rome' (1831); The Church History of the First Three 
Centuries (1853): What kind of authority can there be for an 'Apostle' who, 
unlike the other Apostles, had never been prepared for the Apostolic office in 
Jesus' own school but had only later dared to claim the Apostolic office on the 
basis of his own authority? | The only question comes to be how the Apostle Paul 
appears in his Epistles to be so indifferent to the historical facts of the life 
of Jesus.... He bears himself but little like a disciple who has received the 
doctrines and the principles which he preaches from the Master whose name he 
bears.

Henry David Thoreau, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (1849): It is 
necessary not to be Christian to appreciate the beauty and significance of the 
life of Christ.

Søren Kierkegaard, The Journals (1849,'50,'54,'55): In Christ the religious is 
completely present-tense; in Paul it is already on the way to becoming doctrine. 
One can imagine the rest!... This trend has been kept up for God knows how many 
centuries. | When Jesus Christ lived, he was indeed the prototype. The task of 
faith is ... to imitate Christ, become a disciple. Then Christ dies. Now, 
through the Apostle Paul, comes a basic alteration.... He draws attention away 
from imitation and fixes it decisively upon the death of Christ the Atoner. | 
What Luther failed to realize is that the true situation is that the Apostle 
[Paul] has already degenerated by comparison with the Gospel. | It becomes the 
disciple who decides what Christianity is, not the master, not Christ but 
Paul,... [who] threw Christianity away completely, turning it upside down, 
getting it to be just the opposite of what it is in the [original] Christian 
proclamation.

Benjamin Jowett, The Epistles of St. Paul to the Thessalonians, Galatians and 
Romans (1855): Our conception of the Apostolical age is necessarily based on the 
Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles of St. Paul. It is in vain to search 
ecclesiastical writings for further information.... Confining ourselves, then, 
to the original sources, we cannot but be struck by the fact, that of the first 
eighteen years after the day of Pentecost, hardly any account is preserved to 
us.... It seems as if we had already reached the second stage in the history of 
the Apostolic Church, without any precise knowledge of the first.

Charles Dickens, Little Dorrit (1857): There was the dreary Sunday of his 
childhood, when he sat with his hands before him, scared out of his senses by a 
horrible tract which commenced business with the poor child by asking him, why 
he was going to perdition?,... and which, for the further attraction of his 
infant mind had a parenthesis in every other line with some such hiccoughing 
reference as 2 Ep.Thess. c.iii v.6&7 ['keep away from any brother who travels 
about in idleness']. 

Ernest Renan, Saint Paul (1869): True Christianity, which will last forever, 
comes from the Gospels, not from the epistles of Paul. The writings of Paul have 
been a danger and a hidden rock, the causes of the principal defects of 
Christian theology.

Mark Twain, Notebooks (n/d): If Christ were here now, there is one thing he 
would not be--a Christian.

Feodor Dostoyevsky, The Diary of a Writer (1880); The Brothers Karamazov (1880): 
If slavery prevailed in the days of the Apostle Paul, this was precisely because 
the churches which originated then were not yet perfect, as we perceive from the 
Epistles of the Apostle himself. However, those members of the congregations 
who, individually, attained perfection no longer owned or could have had slaves, 
because these became brethren, and a brother, a true brother, cannot have a 
brother as his slave. | This child born of the son of the devil and of a holy 
woman:... they baptized him 'Paul'.

Friedrich Nietzsche, The Dawn (1881): The story of one of the most ambitious and 
obtrusive of souls, of a head as superstitious as it was crafty, the story of 
the Apostle Paul--who knows this, except a few scholars? Without this strange 
story, however, without the confusions and storms of such a head, such a soul, 
there would be no Christianity.

Leo Tolstoy, My Religion (1884): The separation between the doctrine of life and 
the explanation of life began with the preaching of Paul who knew not the 
ethical teachings set forth in the Gospel of Matthew, and who preached a 
metaphisico-cabalistic theory entirely foreign to Christ; and this separation 
was perfected in the time of Constantine, when it was found possible to clothe 
the whole pagan organization of life in a Christian dress, and without changing 
it to call it Christianity.

William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience (Gifford Lectures, 1901): 
This is the religious melancholy and 'conviction of sin' that have played so 
large a part in the history of Protestant Christianity.... As Saint Paul says: 
self-loathing, self-despair, an unintelligible and intolerable burden ... [--a] 
typical [case] of discordant personality, with melancholy in the form of self-
condemnation and sense of sin.

William Wrede, Paul (1904): The obvious contradictions in the three accounts [of 
Paul's conversion in Ac 9 & 22 & 26] are enough to arouse distrust of all that 
goes beyond this kernel.... The moral majesty of Jesus, his purity and piety, 
his ministry among his people, his manner as a prophet, the whole concrete 
ethical-religious content of his earthly life, signifies for Paul's Christology-
-nothing whatever.... If we do not wish to deprive both figures of all 
historical distinctness, the name 'disciple of Jesus' has little applicability 
to Paul.... Jesus or Paul: this alternative characterizes, at least in part, the 
religious and theological warfare of the present day.

Albert Schweitzer, The Quest for the Historical Jesus (1906); The Mysticism of 
St. Paul (1931): Paul ... did not desire to know Christ after the flesh.... 
Those who want to find a way from the preaching of Jesus to early Christianity 
are conscious of the peculiar difficulties raised.... Paul shows us with what 
complete indifference the earthly life of Jesus was regarded by primary 
Christianity. | What is the significance for our faith and for our religious 
life, of the fact that the Gospel of Paul is different from the Gospel of 
Jesus?... The attitude which Paul himself takes up towards the Gospel of Jesus 
is that he does not repeat it in the words of Jesus, and does not appeal to its 
authority.... The fateful thing is that the Greek, the Catholic, and the 
Protestant theologies all contain the Gospel of Paul in a form which does not 
continue the Gospel of Jesus, but displaces it.

Gerald Friedlander, The Jewish Sources of the Sermon on the Mount (1911): Paul 
has surely nothing to do with the Sermon on the Mount.... The Sermon says: 
'Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are 
ravening wolves' (Matt.vii.15). This is generally understood as a warning 
against untrustworthy leaders in religion.... Does the verse express the 
experience of the primitive Church? Might it not be a warning against Paul and 
his followers?

George Bernard Shaw, Androcles and the Lion, Introduction (1915): There is not 
one word of Pauline Christianity in the characteristic utterances of Jesus.... 
There has really never been a more monstrous imposition perpetrated than the 
imposition of Paul's soul upon the Soul of Jesus.... It is now easy to 
understand why the Christianity of Jesus failed completely to establish itself 
politically and socially, and was easily suppressed by the police and the 
Church, whilst Paulinism overran the whole western civilized world, which was at 
that time the Roman Empire, and was adopted by it as its official faith. 

Martin Buber, 'The Holy Way' (1918); Two Types of Faith (1948): The man who, in 
transmitting Judaism to the peoples, brought about its breakup,... this violator 
of the spirit,... [was] Saul, the man from Tarsus.... He transmitted Jesus' 
teaching ... to the nations, handing them the sweet poison of faith, a faith 
that was to disdain works, exempt the faithful from realization, and establish 
dualism in the [Christian] world. It is the Pauline era whose death agonies we 
today [in World War I] are watching with transfixed eyes. | Not merely the Old 
Testament Belief and the living faith of post-Biblical Judaism are opposed to 
Paul, but also the Jesus of the Sermon on the Mount.... One must see Jesus apart 
from his historical connection with Christianity.... It is Peter [rather than 
Paul] who represents the unforgettable recollection of the conversations of 
Jesus with the Disciples in Galilee.

Thomas Edward Lawrence, The Seven Pillars of Wisdom (1919): Christianity was a 
hybrid, except in its first root not essentially Semitic.

Carl Gustav Jung, 'The Psychological Foundations of Belief in Spirits' (1919); 
'A Psychological Approach to the Dogma of the Trinity' (1940): Saul's ... 
fanatical resistance to Christianity,... as we know from the Epistles, was never 
entirely overcome. | It is frankly disappointing to see how Paul hardly ever 
allows the real Jesus of Nazareth to get a word in.

Herbert George Wells, The Outline of History (1920): St. Paul and his successors 
added to or completed or imposed upon or substituted another doctrine for--as 
you may prefer to think--the plain and profoundly revolutionary teachings of 
Jesus, by expounding ... a salvation which could be obtained very largely by 
belief and formalities, without any serious disturbance of the believer's 
ordinary habits and occupations.

Franz Kafka, The Castle (1926): Barnabas is certainly not an official, not even 
one in the lowest category.... One shouldn't suddenly send an inexperienced 
youngster like Barnabas ... into the Castle, and then expect a truthful account 
of everything from him, interpret each single word of his as if it were a 
revelation, and base one's own life's happiness on the interpretation. Nothing 
could be more mistaken.

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Divine Milieu (1927): The mystical Christ, the 
universal Christ of St. Paul, has neither meaning nor value in our eyes except 
as an expansion of the Christ who was born of Mary and who died on the cross. 
The former essentially draws his fundamental quality of undeniability and 
concreteness from the latter. However far we may be drawn into the divine spaces 
opened up to us by Christian mysticism, we never depart from the Jesus of the 
gospels.

Mahatma Gandhi, 'Discussion on Fellowship', Young India (1928): I draw a great 
distinction between the Sermon on the Mount and the Letters of Paul. They are a 
graft on Christ's teaching, his own gloss apart from Christ's own experience.

Kahil Gibran, Jesus the Son of Man (1928): This Paul is indeed a strange man. 
His soul is not the soul of a free man. He speaks not of Jesus nor does he 
repeat His Words. He would strike with his own hammer upon the anvil in the Name 
of One whom he does not know.

Oswald Spengler, The Decline of the West (vol II, 1928): Paul had for the Jesus-
communities of Jerusalem a scarcely veiled contempt.... 'Jesus is the Redeemer 
and Paul is his Prophet'--this is the whole content of his message.

Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms (1929): That Saint Paul.... He's the one 
who makes all the trouble.

Rudolf Bultmann, 'The Significance of the Historical Jesus for the Theology of 
Paul' (1929): It is most obvious that [Paul] does not appeal to the words of the 
Lord in support of his strictly theological, anthropological, and soteriological 
views.... When the essentially Pauline conceptions are considered, it is clear 
that there Paul is not dependent on Jesus. Jesus' teaching is--to all intents 
and purposes--irrelevant for Paul.

Walter Bauer, Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity (German edition 
1934): As far as Paul is concerned, in the Apocalypse [Rev/Ap 21:14] only the 
names of the twelve apostles are found on the foundations of the New Jerusalem--
there is no room for Paul.... For Justin [Martyr in the mid-second century], 
everything is based on the gospel tradition.... The name of Paul is nowhere 
mentioned by Justin;...not only is his name lacking, but also any congruence 
with his epistles.... If one may be allowed to speak rather pointedly, the 
apostle Paul was the only arch-heretic known to the apostolic age....We must 
look to the circle of the twelve apostles to find the guardians of the most 
primitive information about the life and preaching of the Lord.... This treasure 
lies hidden in the synoptic gospels.

Henry Miller, Black Spring (1936): That maniac St. Paul.

Ludwig Wittgenstein, Culture and Value (1980, notes from 1937): The spring which 
flows gently and limpidly in the Gospels seems to have froth on it in Paul's 
Epistles.... To me it's as though I saw human passion here, something like pride 
or anger, which is not in tune with the humility of the Gospels.... I want to 
ask--and may this be no blasphemy--'What might Christ have said to Paul?'... In 
the Gospels--as it seems to me--everything is less pretentious, humbler, 
simpler. There you find huts; in Paul a church. There all men are equal and God 
himself is a man; in Paul there is already something like a hierarchy.

Will Durant, Caesar and Christ (1944): Paul created a theology of which none but 
the vaguest warrants can be found in the words of Christ.... Through these 
interpretations Paul could neglect the actual life and sayings of Jesus, which 
he had not directly known.... He had replaced conduct with creed as the test of 
virtue. It was a tragic change.

Paul Schubert, 'Urgent Tasks for New Testament Research', in H.R. Willoughby 
(editor), The Study of the Bible Today and Tomorrow (1947): As regards Paul and 
his letters there is no notable agreement [among modern theologians] on any 
major issue.

Robert Frost, 'A Masque of Mercy' (1947): Paul: he's in the Bible too. He is the 
fellow who theologized Christ almost out of Christianity. Look out for him.

Erich Fromm, The Dogma of Christ (n/d): Paul appealed ... to some of the wealthy 
and educated class, especially merchants, who by means of their adventures and 
travels had a decided importance for the diffusion of Christianity.... [This] 
had been the religion of a community of equal brothers, without hierarchy or 
bureaucracy, [but] was converted into 'the Church', the reflected image of the 
absolute monarchy of the Roman Empire.

Herbert J. Muller, The Uses of the Past (1952): Saul of Tarsus, who became St. 
Paul,... knew Jesus only by hearsay, and rarely referred to his human life.... 
Paul preached a gospel about Jesus that was not taught by the Jesus of the 
synoptic Gospels.... Setting himself against [the] other disciples,... he was 
largely responsible for the violent break with Judaism.... He contributed a 
radical dualism of flesh and spirit unwarranted by the teachings of Jesus.

W.D. Davies, 'Paul and Jewish Christianity', in J. Daniélou, Théologie du Judéo-
Chriantianisme (1958): Jewish-Christians [opposing Paul] ... must have been a 
very strong, widespread element in the earliest days of the Church.... They took 
for granted that the gospel was continuous with Judaism.... According to some 
scholars, they must have been so strong that right up to the fall of Jerusalem 
in AD 70 they were the dominant element in the Christian movement.

James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time (1963): The real architect of the Christian 
church was not the disreputable, sun-baked Hebrew who gave it his name but 
[rather] the mercilessly fanatical and self-righteous St. Paul.

Georg Strecker, 'On the Problem of Jewish Christianity', Appendix 1 to Walter 
Bauer, op.cit. (1964 ed.): Jewish Christianity, according to the witness of the 
New Testament, stands at the beginning of the development of church history, so 
that it is not the gentile Christian 'ecclesiastical doctrine' that represents 
what is primary, but rather a Jewish Christian theology.

Helmut Koester, 'The Theological Aspects of Primitive Christian Heresy', in 
James Robinson (editor), The Future of our Religious Past (German edition 1964); 
Ancient Christian Gospels (1990); with Stephen Patterson, 'The Gospel of Thomas: 
Does It Contain Authentic Sayings of Jesus?', Bible Review (1990): Paul himself 
stands in the twilight zone of heresy. | One immediately encounters a major 
difficulty. Whatever Jesus had preached did not become the content of the 
missionary proclamation of Paul.... Sayings of Jesus do not play a role in 
Paul's understanding of the event of salvation.... The Epistle of James also 
shares with the Sermon on the Mount the rejection of the Pauline thesis that 
Christ is the end of the [Mosaic] law. | Paul did not care at all what Jesus had 
said.... Had Paul been completely successful, very little of the sayings of 
Jesus would have survived.

Emil G. Kraeling, The Disciples (1966): The peculiar, unharmonized relationship 
between Paul and the Twelve that existed from the beginning was never fully 
adjusted.... Modern Biblical research in particular has made it difficult to put 
the religion of the New Testament (to say nothing of the Bible as a whole) into 
the straightjacket of Paulinism.

Joseph Campbell, The Masks of God: Creative Mythology (1968): The reign in 
Europe of that order of unreason, unreasoning submission to the dicta of 
authority:... Saint Paul himself had opened the door to such impudent idiocies.

Günther Bornkamm, Paul (1969): Above all there results the chasm which separates 
Jesus from Paul and the conclusion that more than the historical Jesus ... it is 
Paul who really founded Christianity.... Already during his lifetime Paul was 
considered an illegitimate Apostle and a falsifier of the Christian message.... 
For a long time, Judeo-Christianity rejected him completely, as a rival to Peter 
and James, the brother of the Lord.... Paul does not connect immediately with 
... [the] words ... of the earthly Jesus. Everything seems to indicate that he 
didn't even know them.

David Ben-Gurion, Israel: A Personal History (1971): Jesus probably differed 
little from many other Jews of his generation. The new religion was given an 
anti-Jewish emphasis by Saul,... [who] gave Christianity a new direction. He 
sought to uproot Jewish law and commandments, and to eliminate Judaism as a 
national entity striving to achieve the Messianic vision of the Prophets.

William Steuart McBirnie, The Search for the Twelve Apostles (1973): Why did 
Jesus choose only twelve chief Apostles? Obviously, to correspond to the twelve 
tribes of Israel.... Paul stoutly maintained that he also was an Apostle.... Yet 
there is no evidence that he was ever admitted to that inner circle of the 
original Twelve.... Those who expect the Acts to be the complete early history 
of Christianity are doomed to disappointment.... The Bible student is soon, and 
perhaps unconsciously, caught up in the personal ministry of Paul. Peter, though 
prominent at first, is later ignored, as the Acts unfolds for the reader the 
story of Paul and his friends.... There is absolutely no evidence that Paul ever 
recognized the 'primacy' of Peter.

Ronald Brownrigg, The Twelve Apostles (1974): The letters of Paul present a 
marked contrast to Luke's writings [in his Gospel and the Acts]. Whereas Luke 
suggests that the Apostles were a closed corporation of twelve governing the 
whole Church, Paul disagrees, claiming his own Apostleship to be as valid as any 
of the twelve.... Certainly Paul knew no authority of the twelve.... The 
qualification for Apostleship, at the election of Matthias [Ac 1:15-26], had 
been a divinely guided selection and a constant companionship with Jesus 
throughout his [public] lifetime.

Elaine H. Pagels, The Gnostic Paul (1975): Two antithetical traditions of 
Pauline exegesis have emerged from the late first century through the second. 
Each claims to be authentic, Christian, and Pauline: but one reads Paul anti-
gnostically, the other gnostically.... Whoever takes account of the total 
evidence may learn from the debate to approach Pauline exegesis with renewed 
openness to the text.

Irving Howe, World of our Fathers (1976): The view that sexual activity is 
impure or at least suspect, so often an accompaniment of Christianity, was 
seldom entertained in the [east-European Jewish] shtetl. Paul's remark that it 
is better to marry than to burn would have seemed strange, if not downright 
impious, to the Jews.

Edward Schillebeeckx, Christ (1977): There is a difference between the theology 
of the early Jewish Christian congregations in Jerusalem which are oriented on 
Jesus of Nazareth, and Pauline theology, which knows only 'the crucified'.

Yigael Yadin, 'The Temple Scroll--the Longest Dead Sea Scroll', Biblical 
Archaeology Review (Sept/Oct 1984): We must distinguish between the various 
layers, or strata, to use an archaeological term, of early Christianity. The 
theology, the doctrines and the practices of Jesus, John the Baptist and Paul 
... are not the same.

James Michener, Legacy (1987): Women ... will no longer kowtow to the 
fulminations of St. Paul.

Paula Fredriksen, From Jesus to Christ (1988): Scholars, their confusion 
facilitated by Paul's own apparent inconsistency,... do not agree even on what 
Paul said, much less why he said it.

Stephen Mitchell, The Gospel according to Jesus (1991): Paul of Tarsus ... [was] 
the most misleading of the earliest Christian writers,... [and] a particularly 
difficult character: arrogant, self-righteous, filled with murderous hatred of 
his opponents, terrified of God, oppressed by what he felt as the burden of the 
[Mosaic] Law, overwhelmed by his sense of sin.... He didn't understand Jesus at 
all. He wasn't even interested in Jesus; just in his own idea of the Christ.

Shlomo Riskin, The Jerusalem Post International Edition (March 28, 1992): Saul 
of Tarsus ... broke from Jewish Law, and the religion thereby created was soon 
encrusted with pagan elements.

Dennis J. Trisker & Vera V. Martínez T., They Also Believe (1992): While many 
persons believe that Christianity was founded by Jesus Christ,... it is due to 
Paul that there exists the organization called Christian.... In the New 
Testament, we can see how Paul ... was in disagreement with the church in 
Jerusalem and even held in suspicion by them.... He did not emphasize the Jewish 
aspect of the teaching, and this brought about the first separation within the 
church. Across the years this separation widened, making the church more pagan 
and less Jewish.... Paul was no Apostle.

Bart D. Ehrman, The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture (1993): Whether seen from a 
social or a theological point of view,... Christianity in the early centuries 
was a remarkably diversified phenomenon.... Matthew and Paul are both in the 
canon.... Many of Paul's opponents were clearly Jewish Christians ... [who] 
accepted the binding authority of the Old Testament (and therefore the 
continuing validity of the [Mosaic] Law) but rejected the authority of the 
apostate Apostle, Paul.

Ian Wilson, Jesus: The Evidence (1996): [The] interest [in Paul's letters] lies 
in their apparent ignorance of any details of Jesus' earthly life.... [Paul] 
reflected the attitudes of contemporary society towards women rather than what 
we may now believe to have been Jesus' own ideas.... We seem to be faced with a 
straight, first-century clash of theologies: Paul's on the one hand, based on 
his other-worldly [Damascus Road] experience; and James' [in his epistle], based 
on his fraternal knowledge of the human Jesus. And, despite the authority which 
should be due to the latter, it would seem to be Paul's that has been allowed to 
come down to us.... Particularly significant is [James'] gentle but firm stance 
on the importance of Jesus' teaching on communal living.

Alan F. Segal (for Eugene Schwartz), 'Electronic Echoes: Using Computer 
Concordances for Bible Study', Biblical Archaeology Review (Nov/Dec 1997): We 
can easily quantify allusions by measuring whether a passage in one Biblical 
work merely repeats a few words of another or whether it directly quotes several 
words running.... The results of our research seemed to confirm ... very few 
clear parallels between Paul and the Gospels.... [They] almost always express 
[even] the same ideas in completely different words.... I am unconvinced by the 
myriad rather weak parallels between the Gospels and Paul. Rather,... the 
[computer] word study seems to show that the two are definitely unrelated. 

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