The Gospel of St Thomas

The Gospel of St Thomas
Translated from the Coptic by Jean-Yves Leloup
English translation Joseph Rowe
Inner Traditions, Rochester, Vermont
ISBN 1-59477-046-8



As Jacob Needleman writes in his introduction to this Gnostic Gospel, “Among all the astonishing documents accidentally unearthed in 1945 near the desert village of Nag Hammadi in Upper Egypt, the Gospel of Thomas has made the greatest impact on our understanding of Christianity…. It is almost as though an audible recording of the voice of Jesus had been discovered. That is to say that even across the reaches of millennial time and the curtain of translation from languages known to but a few, for many of us the words in this text have the power to touch an unknown part of ourselves that brings with it an undeniable recognition of truth and hope.”

This Gospel of Thomas does not contain a narrative recording contains no biography of Jesus, nor any account of his miracles.. It is a collection of 114 sayings which are said to be the naked words attributed to the Master, “the Living Jesus”. The essence of the book is summed up by the translator, Jean-Yves Leloup:…’But there is also a consciousness that arises directly from knowledge of ourselves, of the ‘Living One’ within us. It is toward this consciousness, this gnosis, that Yeshua (Jesus) invites us in the Gospel of Thomas – not in order to become ‘good Christians,’ but to become christs – in other words, Gnostics, or awakened human beings.”

Extract

These are the worlds of the Secret.
They were revealed by the Living Yeshua.
Didymus Judas Thomas wrote them down.

1. Yeshua said:
Whoever lives the interpretation of these words
Will no longer taste death.

2. Yeshua said:
Whoever searches
Must continue to search
Until they find.
When they find,
They will be disturbed;
And being disturbed, they will marvel
And will reign over All.

3. Yeshua said:
If those who guide you say: Look,
The Kingdom is in the sky,
Then the birds are closer than you.
If they say: Look,
It is in the sea,
Then the fish already know it.
The Kingdom is inside you,
And it is outside you.
When you know yourself, then you will be known,
And you will know that you are the child of the Living Father;
But if you do not know yourself,
You will live in vain
And you will be vanity.