Gospels of Thomas and Philip and Truth - Syriac Christian Church

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Barnabas, the Shepherd of Hermas, the Gospel of the Egyptians, the Gospel of the Hebrews (in which Christ calls the Sacred Spirit his Mother), the Traditions of Matthias, the Apocalypse of Peter, the Didakhê, and the Acts of Paul. Thus the Codex Sinaiticus of the mid-4th century includes both Barnabas and the Shepherd of Hermas, while the Codex Alexandrinus of the early 5th century contains I and II Clement as well as the Psalms of Solomon. There was no church council regarding the NT canon until the Synod of Laodicea (363 AD), which indeed rejected John's Apocalypse or Book of Revelation. Twelve centuries later (!), the Western Canon was finally settled by the Council of Trent (1546 AD), which designated the present 27-book listing as an article of Roman Catholic faith (although episcopal councils have never claimed to be infallible; the vote at Trent was 24 to 15, with 16 abstentions)— and which the various Protestant Churches subsequently accepted. The sundry Eastern Churches have equally complex records on establishing their respective NT canons: thus, the Armenian canon includes a Pauline III Corinthians; the Coptic NT contains I+II Clement; the Syrian/ Nestorian Peshitta excludes II+III John, Jude, and Rev/Ap; the Ethiopian Bible adds books called the Sínodos, the Epistle of Peter to Clement, the Book of the Covenant, and the Didascalia; and John's Rev/Ap is still not included in the Greek Orthodox Bible! (see Biblio.35) Notably, however, the Gospels of Thomas, Philip and Truth were evidently not known to any of those traditions at the time of their attempts at establishing a NT canon, never being so much as mentioned in their protracted deliberations— and hence were never even under consideration for inclusion in their respective listings. In any case, the concept of a canon was certainly never intended to exclude the possible inspiration of any subsequent textual discoveries or isolated agrapha (Lk 1:1, Jn 21:25). Precisely what transpired during the first 3½ centuries AD, prior to the earliest ecclesiastical attempts at forming a canon, is notoriously obscure, 6
as the original Gospel Messianics were eventually supplanted by the Pauline ‘Christians’ (Ac 11:2526). Thus the Epistle of Barnabas (late first century) remains unacquainted with the historical Gospels, whereas Justin Martyr (mid-second century) shows no awareness of Paul's writings— indicating an ongoing schism between the Petrine and the Pauline traditions. Clement of Alexandria and Irenaeus of Lyon, at the end of the second century, are the first authors explicitly to quote from both the Gospels and from Paul. I have attempted to analyze the basis of this rift in ‘The Paul Paradox’, Comm.5, below. Essential reading on that formative period is Walter Bauer's pioneering study, Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity (1934; http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/humm/Resources/Bauer). The translations of the texts themselves are both as literal and as lyrical as I could make them. Any grammatical irregularities encountered (e.g. the verb tenses in Th 109) are in the Coptic text itself. Plausible textual reconstructions are in [brackets], while editorial additions are in (parentheses). ‘[...]’ indicates places where it is not possible to interpolate the deterioration of the papyrus manuscript. The Greek Oxyrhynchus variants to Thomas are within {braces}. ‘You’ and its cognates are plural, ‘thou’ and its cognates represent the singular (but generally with the modern verb-form). Notes at the end of each logion are indicated by superscript¹, those at the end of the current text with a circle°. The scriptural cross-references listed are essential to an understanding of the saying in its biblical context, and the reader is urged to refer to them in every case; explicit parallels to Thomas in the Synoptics are separately marked with an equal sign=, to spare the reader looking up what is already well-known. In antiquity, of course, there were no lower-case letters, and thus in order to represent the Hebrew, Greek and Coptic scripts I have not here used their subsequent cursive letters but rather their classic forms, which are easier for the non-scholar to read. In turn, in translating such ancient texts to modern languages, it is virtually impossible to capitalize in a consistent and adequate manner; I 7
Page 1 and 2: Metalogos’ The Gospels of Thomas
Page 3 and 4: Introduction In December of 1945 tw
Page 5: www.metalog.org/files/supremacy.htm
Page 9 and 10: Establishment— whether political,
Page 11 and 12: Somsel); also in MSWord print versi
Page 13 and 14: www.metalog.org. 20. ‘The History
Page 15 and 16: (www.metalog.org/files/tpb/sabbath.
Page 17 and 18: the words of Jesus contained in our
Page 19 and 20: contains ... four parables which ar
Page 21 and 22: the year 140 AD, and could date fro
Page 23 and 24: These are the secret sayings° whic
Page 25 and 26: together?’; ³the Qur’án 27:75
Page 27 and 28: sick among them. For what goes into
Page 29 and 30: act feminine, when you establish [a
Page 31 and 32: 33. Yeshua says: What thou shall he
Page 33 and 34: 45. Yeshua says: They do not harves
Page 35 and 36: 55. Yeshua says: Whoever does not h
Page 37 and 38: invites thee. He replied to him: My
Page 39 and 40: 77. Yeshua says: I-Am the Light who
Page 41 and 42: 89. Yeshua says: Why do you wash th
Page 43 and 44: nor does he allow the oxen to eat.
Page 45 and 46: evolving after the invasion of Alex
Page 47 and 48: Image/Imagery (22 50 83 84): Gk Ε
Page 49 and 50: Sabbath (27): Heb tb# (shabat: repo
Page 51 and 52: Yeshua (Prologue et passim): Aram (
Page 53 and 54: you.’) 9. The light with the dark
Page 55 and 56: it had no wheat as food for humanki
Page 57 and 58:
Logos; and his blood is the Sacred
Page 59 and 60:
are born. Therefore we also are mot
Page 61 and 62:
have found his sons to be noble for
Page 63 and 64:
(Isa 44:9-20!, Ph 14) 55. Vessels o
Page 65 and 66:
65. (Among) the unclean spirits the
Page 67 and 68:
28 58) 72. The truth did not come u
Page 69 and 70:
80. Thru the Sacred Spirit we are i
Page 71 and 72:
the Sovereignty of the Heavens, whi
Page 73 and 74:
on that which he had planted. His h
Page 75 and 76:
custom drink this, we shall receive
Page 77 and 78:
the Union° is the recognition. The
Page 79 and 80:
and sun and wind bring on the flowe
Page 81 and 82:
woman mate with each other, except
Page 83 and 84:
that visible beings are thus weak a
Page 85 and 86:
eternal. And it is thus revealed to
Page 87 and 88:
Shorter Oxford English Dictionary,
Page 89 and 90:
thereafter in Mesopotamia. Joseph t
Page 91 and 92:
Disciple, one of the Seven and auth
Page 93 and 94:
1. The Gospel of Truth is joy for t
Page 95 and 96:
8. Thus he became a reposeful and l
Page 97 and 98:
whither he is going. He understands
Page 99 and 100:
drawn to cut this way and that as e
Page 101 and 102:
27. Then the moment comes when thos
Page 103 and 104:
35. Thus strength grows in action.
Page 105 and 106:
compassion of the Father who will h
Page 107 and 108:
Father is the Son. How otherwise wo
Page 109 and 110:
speaking the perfect light which is
Page 111:
(1) Are the Coptic Gospels Gnostic?
Page 114 and 115:
It would merely beg the question to
Page 116 and 117:
This allusion strongly conveys a ma
Page 118 and 119:
It will be of value to list here th
Page 120 and 121:
III Philip 46 is thus a logion whic
Page 122 and 123:
composed of God’s imagination. VI
Page 124 and 125:
structure of [Mahayana] Buddhist ph
Page 126 and 127:
4.3 the ego is within its imagery (
Page 128 and 129:
excerpts suffice to show that what
Page 130 and 131:
The Gospels stipulate that those wo
Page 132 and 133:
The Gospels endorse John's Baptism
Page 134 and 135:
Pauline Church— which indeed has
Page 136 and 137:
epose? Tales from the Old French,
Page 138 and 139:
he did not know that he was dead [J
Page 140 and 141:
opinion of St Paul, all things cons
Page 142 and 143:
teachings set forth in the Gospel o
Page 144 and 145:
Mark Twain, Letters from the Earth
Page 146 and 147:
celibacy indeed entered Christianit
Page 148 and 149:
Bertrand Russell, ‘An Outline of
Page 150 and 151:
William D. Davies, ‘Paul and Jewi
Page 152 and 153:
primary, but rather a Jewish Christ
Page 154 and 155:
doomed to disappointment.... The Bi
Page 156 and 157:
ejecting the [Mosaic] law.... Paul
Page 158 and 159:
Jon Sobrino, Jesus Christ Liberator
Page 160 and 161:
individual deeds. || One might refl
Page 162:
fitting teacher for flesh and blood
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Gospels of Thomas and Philip and Truth - Syriac Christian Church

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