Commentary on the Gospel of Thomas

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Recovered to history by a chance find in 1945 at Nag Hammadi in Egypt, the Gospel of Thomas has been recognised as an authentic document stemming from the same Q document that the Synoptic Gospels used. But Thomas gives an extra slant to the stories and teachings contained in the other Gospels. Instead of Chapters, Thomas is divided into 114 Logia (Sayings) each of which gives a short teaching that Christ made to his disciples, or a larger group of listeners. Many of these Logia occur also in the other Gospels, but some are presented in a new light, to give a deeper explanation than found in the Synoptic Gospels. Other Logia consist of teachings which occur here in Thomas but nowhere else in the New Testament. While some authors condemn Thomas as a “Gnostic” gospel, in fact as Clement of Alexandria, a great early theologian pointed out, there is such a thing as authentic Christian Gnosis, for unless Christianity had this intellectual or knowledge based dimension, it would be simply a faith-cult, unappealing to people of reason and intellect, like myriads of others throughout history and nowadays. The author argues that the Thomas tradition represents an alternative and complementary way of Christian discipleship, which emphasises intellectual assent and rational study and profound philosophical, ethical and metaphysical analysis of the life and teachings of Christ. This Commentary on the Gospel of Thomas, set against the other major Gospels, breaks new ground in the scientific and theological study of the New Testament, and reminds listeners that Christianity does in fact have a robust intellectual content which has been too long neglected. This commentary draws on Hebrew, Aramaic, Coptic, Greek, Latin and Egyptian studies, to try and track down the roots of Christ’s teachings in all their depth. It also explores the many levels of interpretation which the New Testament requires: historical, literal, figurative, mystical, and allegorical. It draws on the concepts of transpersonal history to enable a comprehensive overview of both the details of the text, but also their wider archetypal, symbolic, psychological, spiritual and historical meanings to unfold. It draws on Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican, Quaker, Protestant, Qabalistic, Hermetic, Gnostic, Platonic, Druidical and transpersonal ideas.