Gospel of Thomas

“Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas” (Elaine Pagels)

I couldn't remember exactly I had read the phrase, “If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.”

Probably from this book.

I missed this episode of Bill Moyers interviewing Elaine Pagels, unfortunately. While I am by no definition a religious man, I am insanely interested in the relationship between man, religion and history.

NOW with Bill Moyers. Transcript. Interview with Elaine Pagels. 5.16.03 | PBS:
The Gospel of Thomas is a quite amazing text. It consists of just… it starts with the words, “These are the secret words which the living Jesus spoke. And Thomas wrote them down.” And all it is, are sayings of Jesus. But unlike the Gospels in the New Testament, like Matthew and Luke, this one has not public teaching, but secret sayings. It speaks about a Jesus who speaks about every one of us coming from God's primordial light. It speaks about all beings coming from God. The New Testament Gospel of John says Jesus is the light. Everything refers to Jesus. Jesus teaches you have to believe in Jesus, you have to follow Jesus. This Gospel is not about that.
...PAGELS: We don't know who wrote this Gospel, any more than we know who wrote any of the others, actually. They're all attributed to disciples. But we don't know.

It's not unlikely — or, put it differently — it's likely that some of the sayings here are sayings that Jesus spoke. In fact, many of the sayings are the same as you'll find in the Gospel of Matthew and Luke in the New Testament. And some of them are quite different. They're not simple. They're kind of puzzles. They're koans. They're meant to be struggled with.

MOYERS: Koan — that's a Buddhist term, isn't it?

PAGELS: It's a Buddhist term. It means it's not a clear saying. But it's a puzzling saying. It's powerful. In these sayings, Jesus says things like, “If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.”

Now, when I heard that saying, I thought, “I don't have to believe that. I just know that's true.” And that could be true on a psychological level. And I think it's also true on a spiritual level. That we need to find spiritual resources within ourselves. And according to this kind of source, the reason we can find it within ourselves, is that we come from that source.

MOYERS: Why isn't the official Bible, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Thomas?

PAGELS: That would make a very interesting Bible. But I think that the people like the Archbishop, who called books like this illegitimate secret Gospels, thought that it was dangerous to say, “Well, you could go off and find God on your own. You don't need the beliefs that the Church establishes. You don't need the Bishop, you don't need to go to church. You don't need to be baptized.” I mean, to say that might make the church less important. And he was not an Archbishop to take that lightly.

MOYERS: So, this was about what year?

PAGELS: That was the year 367. It was after the church had become the religion of the Empire. It was the beginning of the establishment of Imperial Christianity.

The Black Iron Prison, as Philip K. Dick called it.

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