Forgery and Counterforgery: The Use of Literary Deceit in Early Christian Polemics (65 page)

It is striking that in the Gospel of Thomas Jesus’ response redirects the question, away from the issue of personal destiny and the temporality that it implies (the postmortem experience of the believer). To know the “end” one has to know the “beginning.” The end, in fact, is not a new beginning, as the disciples mistakenly think. It is a return to the original beginning, which encapsulates the end. Those who recognize the beginning are already at the end; they have achieved the goal. That is to say, the end is not a cataclysmic break in history, as in apocalyptic eschatology, or the future fate of the soul, as in proto-orthodox transformations of that idea. It is instead a return to the beginning.

It is important to note that “the beginning” for this author is present. It “is.” The one who understands this beginning—who knows the primordial condition—is still in the present, and yet experiences the return to Eden. Such a one “will not taste death.” Since this final clause recalls saying 1, it should be clear that those who understand the secret sayings of Jesus are those who understand that the beginning is the end and so have achieved the Edenic existence of the kingdom. As saying 49 later expresses the matter: “You will find the kingdom; for you are from it and to it you will return.”
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DeConick has provided a clear exposition of saying 18: “It is implied by this dialogue that the community previously has misunderstood the End to refer to the eschatological renewal of creation through cosmic endings, rather than the mystical renewal of creation and the original Adam through encratic practice and personal transformation.”
⁸³

It is true that even later proto-orthodox thinkers could stress the return to the beginning at the end, as seen, for example, in the comments of Origen:

Seeing, then, that such is the end, when “all enemies shall have been subjected to Christ,” when “the last enemy shall be destroyed, that is death,” and when “the kingdom shall be delivered up to God and the Father by Christ to whom all things have been subjected,” let us, I say, from such an end as this, contemplate the beginning of things. For the end is always like the beginning; as therefore there is one end of all things, so we must understand that there is one beginning of all things, and as there is one end of many things, so from one beginning arise many differences and varieties, which in their turn are restored … to one end, which is like the beginning.” (
On First Principles
, 1.6.2)
⁸⁴

But even here “the end” is an apocalyptic event, not a present reality. The polemic of the saying in Thomas is especially stark in comparison with the apocalyptic sayings of Jesus found in the Synoptic tradition. In Mark 9:1, in particular, the disciples “will not taste death” until they see that the apocalyptic events of cosmic upheaval transform their world. How different that is from the disciples of Thomas, who “will not taste death”—period. For the kingdom is not a future physical event to come to earth. It is within those who come to understand the secret teachings of Jesus and, thereby, come to know themselves.

Jesus’ anti-apocalyptic eschatology, and the disciples’ failure to appreciate it, are continued in saying 37. Once again the disciples ask a future-oriented question, in this instance involving not their own fate so much as the return of Jesus: “When will you appear to us and when shall we see you?” And once again Jesus corrects the question by his response: the full revelation of divine truth does not come from something that Jesus will do, such as return in glory. It comes from something his disciples do: escape the material trappings of this world (“when you strip naked without being ashamed and take off your clothes … and stamp on them”). For this Gospel, Jesus is not one who “will be” seen; he is already here, in this world, for those who already see: “Split a piece of wood: I am there. Lift up the stone and you will find me there” (saying 77). The disciples will “see” Jesus (“the son of the Living One”)
⁸⁵
when they escape the material trappings of this world.

Valantasis argues that the “clothes” of this passage represent social encumbrances,
⁸⁶
but they are better understood as the materiality of the body, as more widely interpreted. And even though the metaphor of “stripping” may call to mind baptismal language, as stressed by J. Z. Smith, others such as April De-Conick and Jarl Fossum have noted that a range of Jewish and Christian texts use the image to refer to the removal of the body (“stripped”).
⁸⁷
Trampling on the body, then, refers to physical renunciation, for example in the kinds of ascetic lifestyle otherwise endorsed by the Gospel. Moreover, behaving like “little children” by stripping without shame may recall saying 18 and the need to return to “the
beginning,” that is, to human existence before the Fall. Returning to a prelapsarian state means enjoying the life of Eden; it is worth noting that Adam and Eve are described in Gen. 2:25 as naked and not ashamed. Only after eating the fruit do they cover themselves (3:7, because they were “afraid”). In other Christian texts, such as the
Liber Graduum
(341:2–5), Adam and Eve are described, prior to eating the fruit, as naked nursing babies who are not ashamed.
⁸⁸

In short, for saying 37, the disciples err in eagerly awaiting the physical return of Jesus. What matters is not an imminent parousia but a new way of life. Jesus’ followers must escape their bodily constraints and the material trappings of this world in order to “see” Jesus as he really is, and thus return to an Edenic existence. The material world will not be destroyed by a decisive act of God in a future cataclysmic event; the world is to be escaped through renunciation of the body.

The disciples continue to demonstrate their lack of understanding in the opening question of saying 51: “When will the repose of the dead take place? And when will the new world come?” As Valantasis has pointed out, the question not only works against the tenor of the entire document—presupposing precisely the apocalyptic view that the author is at pains to polemicize against—it also fails to grasp the teaching of the immediately preceding saying 50, where “repose” is not for the dead but for the living. Once again Jesus corrects their misunderstanding: the “new world” is not a future event; it is already present for those who understand the teachings of Jesus and have achieved self-knowledge. The Kingdom is within those who know themselves.

Here, as in the preceding sayings, it is clear that we are witnessing developments within the Thomasine community as it shifts from an apocalyptic view inherited from other, earlier Christian traditions, and begins, then, to polemicize against them, stressing that the Kingdom is available in the here and now. De-Conick has plausibly argued that the shift in the community’s thinking occurred in stages, evident in the probable (though hypothetical) transmission history of this particular saying. Originally, in her view, the disciples asked “when will the resurrection
of the dead occur?” This, then, was an apocalyptic view, that came to be displaced. But in a second stage the community’s eschatology became personal, rather than apocalyptic, and as a result the question itself was changed: “When will the repose [
—different in only three letters] of the dead occur?” Jesus’ reply makes even better sense now: repose is present among those who know themselves (unlike the uncomprehending disciples) and so have recreated Eden in a prelapsarian state.
⁸⁹

It is worth recalling in this connection that there are clear indications elsewhere that the question of when the resurrection will occur was hotly debated. Colossians and Ephesians both suggest that the resurrection of believers has, in some spiritual sense, already happened, a view evidenced as well, earlier, by Paul’s opponents in Corinth. This is a view directly opposed by 2 Timothy (2:18). But it is adopted in modified form in the teachings of Paul’s false followers, Demas and Hermogenes, in the Acts of Paul (“the resurrection which [Paul] says is to come … has already taken place in the children, and that we rise again, after having come to the knowledge of the true God,”
ch. 14
), and in yet another form in the Gospel of Philip: “People who say they will first die and then arise are wrong. If they do not receive the resurrection first, while they are alive, they will receive nothing when they die” (Gospel of Philip 73).
⁹⁰
This final perspective compares favorably with the view staked out in the Gospel of Thomas. The “repose” and the “new world” are not to be expected in the future: they have already come, “but for your part, you do not know it.”

The disciples’ eschatological misunderstanding comes to final expression in the climactic question of saying 113: “When will the kingdom come?” As already mentioned, the saying provides a closing bracket for the opening of saying 3, so that the Gospel begins and ends with the question of the kingdom, emphasizing in both places that it will not arrive in some undisclosed time in the future: “It will not come by waiting for it.” Nor will it be a physical entity here on earth: “They will not say, ‘Look, here it is,’ or ‘Look, it is there.’” Instead the kingdom is here and now, even though it is hidden from those who lack knowledge. For this Gospel, “knowledge” involves both an understanding of these secret teachings of Jesus and the self-knowledge that this understanding brings. And so, “the kingdom of the Father is spread out upon the earth, and people do not see it.”

The polemic against the apocalyptic view here is extended through the use of familiar apocalyptic images. And so, for example, in the apocalyptic discourse of Mark 13:21–23 and Matt. 24:23–26 there are also false teachers who proclaim “Look, here is the Christ!” or “Look, there he is!” In this earlier conception the true followers are not to believe these false proclamations, for the end will not come with the physical appearance of Jesus as a human here on earth. It will come with cataclysmic signs in the heavens, when the sun grows dark, the moon fails to give its light, and the stars fall from the sky. That is when the “Son of Man” will come on the clouds of heaven and send out his angels to collect his chosen ones.

For the Gospel of Thomas nothing could be farther from the truth. Here, false teachers are not false simply because they wrongly think Jesus will physically
return to earth before the catastrophic end; they are false because they think there will be a catastrophic end. They are not wrong in advancing a faulty apocalyptic scenario; they are wrong in advancing any kind of apocalyptic scenario. The kingdom is not coming as a future event. For this Gospel it is experienced here and now among those who interpret and implement Jesus’ sayings correctly and so know who they really are. The kingdom is already spread out on the earth. It is not coming at a future time to a specific place. It is available to all who “find the meaning of these words.” The kingdom of God is not imminent; it is immanent.

1
. See, e.g., Michael Prior,
Paul the Letter-Writer and the Second Letter to Timothy
, JSNTSup (Sheffield : University of Sheffield Press, 1989).

2
. Luke Timothy Johnson,
The First and Second Letters to Timothy
, AB 35A (New York: Doubleday, 2001).

3
. Berlin: Realschulbuchhandlung, 1807.

4
. Jens Herzer, “Fiction oder Tauschung? Zur Diskussion über die Pseudepigraphie der Pastoralbriefe,” in Jörg Frey et al., eds.,
Pseudepigraphie und Verfasserfiktion
, pp. 489–536. For another recent brief history of scholarship, see Luke Timothy Johnson, “First Timothy 1, 1–20: The Shape of the Struggle,” in
1 Timothy Reconsidered
, ed. Karl Paul Donfried (Leuven: Peeters, 2008), pp. 19–39.

5
. 3.1 (Leipzig: Weidmannischen Buchhandlung, 1812).

6
.
Die sogenannten Pastoralbriefe des Apostels Paulus
(Stuttgart: J. G. Cotta, 1835).

7
. Leipzig: Englemann, 1880.

8
. Jeremy Duff, “P46 and the Pastorals: A Misleading Consensus,”
NTS
44 (1998) : 578–90, answered in Eldon J. Epp, “Issues in the Interrelation of New Testament Textual Criticism and Canon,” in
The Canon Debate: On the Origins and Formation of the Bible;
eds. Lee M. McDonald and James A. Sanders (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2002), pp. 485–515; reprinted in E. Epp,
Perspectives on New Testament Textual Criticism: Collected Essays 1962–2004
(Leiden: Brill, 2005), pp. 596–639, here 613–19.