 |
The words of
Jesus
"Come to me, all you who are
weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my
yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am
gentle and humble in heart, and you will
find rest for your souls. For my
yoke is easy and my burden is
light."
"Heaven can be entered only through the
narrow gate! The
path to
spiritual corruption is
broad, and its gate is wide enough for all the multitudes who choose
spiritual corruption's
way. But the gateway to
Life is small, and the
way is narrow, and only a few ever
find it."
"This is the first and greatest
admonishment:
Love
God with all your
heart, soul, and mind.
The second most important is similar:
Love your neighbor as much as you love yourself.
All the other
admonishments and all the admonishments of the
prophets stem from these two
laws and are fulfilled if you
obey them. Keep only these and you
will find that you are obeying all the others."
"Do not worry about
things - food, drink, clothes, for
you already have life."
"Humble men are
fortunate for God's word
is given to them.
Those who grieve
are fortunate for they shall be comforted.
The meek and lowly are
fortunate for the whole
Earth belongs to them.
Content are those who long to be
just and good, for they shall be completely
satisfied.
Content are the compassionate and merciful, for they shall be shown
mercy.
Content are those whose
hearts are
pure, for they shall
see God.
Content are those who strive for
peace they shall be called the
sons of God."
"Beware of
false teachers who come. You can detect them
by the way they
act, just as you can identify
a tree by its
fruit. Different kinds of
fruit
trees can quickly be identified by examining
their fruit. A
variety that produces delicious
fruit never produces an inedible
fruit. And a tree producing an inedible fruit
can't produce what is good. So the
trees having the inedible
fruit are chopped down and
thrown on the fire. The
way to identify a
tree (or a
individual) is by the type of
fruit produced. Not all who
sound religious are. They may refer to
me as 'Lord,' but still won't get to
heaven, for the decisive
question is whether they live by the
Law of God ."
"Why
worry about the small
things in the
eye of a brother when your eyes can
not see ? Should you say, 'brother, let me
help you get the small things out of
your eye,' when you have no
vision ?' Hypocrite! Remove the blinders from
your eyes, then you can see to help your
brother."
"A farmer went
out to his field to sow grain. As he scattered the
seed on the earth, some of it fell on a footpath and was
trampled on; and the birds came and ate it as it
lay exposed. Other
seed fell on shallow
soil with rock beneath. This seed began to grow, but soon withered and died for lack of
moisture.
Other seed landed in thistle
patches, and the young grain stalks were
soon choked out. Still other fell
on fertile soil; this
seed grew and
produced a crop one hundred times as large as he had planted. If anyone has
listening ears, use them now!"
"If, as my disciples , you give even a cup of cold
water to a little
child, you will surely be rewarded. All
that is now hidden will some day come to
light. If you have
ears, listen!
Be sure to put into practice what you hear. The more you do this, the more you
will understand what
I tell you."
"Who ever heard of someone
lighting a lamp and then covering it up to
keep it from shining? No, lamps are mounted in
the open where they can be seen. This illustrates the
fact that some
day every
thing shall be brought to
light and made plain to all. So be careful how
you listen; for whoever has, to him shall be
given more; and whoever does not have, even what he
thinks he has shall be taken away from
him."
"Ask, and you will be given what
you ask for. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and the
door will be opened. For
everyone who asks, receives. Anyone
who seeks, finds. If only you will
knock, the door will
open."
"0 God thank you for
hiding the truth from those who
think themselves so
wise, and for revealing it to little
children."-Jesus of Nazareth,
Jesus' spoken
word as related in the
New Testament - a Christian
sacred text
"Modern New Testament scholarship has shown that we
know far less about the
historical
Jesus than we
thought we did." - Karen Armstrong
The New Testament
did not fall out of the sky a complete
book.The
books of the
New Testament were not all written at the same
time, were not necessarily written in the order
they appear nor were they even originally written in the same
language.
All Christian
documents in existence from before the 4th
century are on papyrus. Since papyrus is fragile, only
fragments of these works have been
preserved.
Before the invention of the printing press in the 15th
century all documents had to be copied by hand, a laborious process that invited
all kinds of variations: misspellings, altered wording, grammatical corrections, stylistic
improvements, insertions, omissions, etc.
No two New
Testaments written before the 15th century are identical. 20th
century versions of the New Testament are
primarily based on parchment uncial codices of the 4th through the 9th century.
Many of the earliest of these, like Sinaiticus, have undergone extensive
"correction" by later scribes. Many New
Testament versions have marginal notes added by
other scribes. These marginalia
were often copied into the main text of later
versions.
In the Codex Bezae, penned in the 6th century, the
left hand page is the Greek and the
right hand side is Latin. As many as
nine correctors worked on the manuscript between the sixth and twelfth century.
A passage - "All things came
into being through him; and apart from
him nothing came into being. What has
come into being in him is
life. And the life was
the light of
humanity."
In the Codex
Washingtonensis, sometimes called Codex Freerianus, penned in 5th to
7th century, paleographers have deduced that the original scribe corrected some
of his own errors. He was followed by another who made revisions. Finally,
two later hands made a few additional
changes.
Codex Washingtonensis is variegated in its
representation. It is conjectured that the exemplar or a distant ancestor that
the scribe was copying from was one that had been pieced together out of
fragments of several manuscripts.
Therefore, readings
representative of all of the major text types
can be found in this manuscript.
A passage - "All
things came into
being through him; and apart from him no
single thing came into
being. What has come into
being in him (is or was)
life. And the life was
the light of
humanity."
The Codex Alexandrinus, penned in the 5th
century, is largely an Alexandrian witness, it belongs to the Byzantine family
which is the oldest example in the text of the
Gospels.
A passage - "All things came into
being through him; and apart from him no
single thing came into
being. In him was life; and the life was the
light of
men."
A later Codex
666, 12th or 13th century reads as follows:
A
passage - "All things came into
being through him; and apart from him no
single thing came into
being that has come into
being. In him was life; and the life was the
light of
men."
Corrected passage -
"All things came into
being through him; and apart from him no
single thing came into
being. What has come into
being was life
in him; and the life was the
light of
men."
Jewish attitudes toward
translations of their scriptures developed over
time. By the 2nd century before
the birth of Jesus, it was often
necessary for the readings in
the synagogues to be interpreted from Hebrew into Aramaic. A later Talmudic
injunction by Rabbi Simon ben Gamaliel said that Greek was the only
language into which the
Torah could be accurately translated.
The Septuagint was the Greek
translation named 'according to the seventy' for the group of Hebrew scholars
that translated the Old Testament
into Greek. The Septuagint
found widespread
use in Hellenistic culture as well as
Jerusalem which had become a cosmopolitan
city.
Several factors finally led most Jews to abandon the Septuagint including: the fact
that Greek scribes were not subject to the same rigid
rules imposed on Hebrew scribes; that
Christians favored the Septuagint; and the gradual
decline of the Greek language
among Jews after most of them fled from the
Greek-speaking Roman Empire into the
Aramaic-speaking Persian Empire when Jerusalem was
destroyed by the
Romans.
The early Christian
Church continued to use the Septuagint, since most of its
earliest members were Greek-speaking and because the Messianic passages most
clearly pointed to Jesus as the
Jesus in the Septuagint translation.
When Saint Jerome started preparation of the
Vulgate translation of the Bible into Latin he started with the Septuagint.
Scribes of
the New Testament, also written in Greek,
quoted from the Septuagint
frequently, though not
exclusively, when relating prophesies and history from the
Old Testament. Even when Latin,
Syriac, Coptic, Armenian and other
translations appeared, the Septuagint continued to be used
by the Greek-speaking portion of the Christian Church.
The Eastern
Orthodox Church still prefers to use Septuagint as the basis for
translating the Old Testament into
other
languages, and the Greek Orthodox
Church (which has no need for translation) continues to use it in its liturgy
even today. Many modern Catholic translations of the Bible, while using the Masoretic
text as their basis, employ the Septuagint to decide between
different possible translations of the Hebrew text whenever the latter is unclear,
corrupt, or ambiguous.
The Greek of the Septuagint has many idioms and
phrases based on Hebrew, and the grammatical phenomenon
known as
attraction is
common there. Some parts of it
have been described as "Hebrew in Greek words".
However, other sections show an
ignorance of Hebrew idiom, so
that the literal translation
provided makes little sense. The translators usually, but not always, employed
one and the same Greek word for one Hebrew
word whenever it occurs. Thus the Septuagint can be called a mostly
concordant translation. However, as in most translations of any literary
work, often more than one Hebrew
word gets translated into one and the same
Greek word, removing some nuances from the
text.
In terms of its importance to the
culture, art,
and life of the Middle Ages, the Vulgate
stands supreme. The Vulgate
Bible is an early 4th century
translation of the Bible into Latin
made by Saint Jerome under the direction of
Pope Damasus I and the
Council of Rome ordered by the
imperial Roman
Emperor Theodosius I in 382 AD. The
Vulgate takes its name from the phrase versio vulgata, "the
common version", and was written
in an everyday Latin used in conscious
distinction to the elegant Ciceronian Latin of which
Saint Jerome was a
master.
The bedrock of
imperial Roman Catholic Christianity is
Saint Jerome's monumental
work, the Vulgate, which was used to
unite the remnants of the
Roman Empire in Western Europe for over a
thousand years from its dessimination after the Council of Rome to 1530 AD when
Martin Luther translated the Bible into
German.
Early attempts to render translations into
vernacular tongues were invariably made from the Vulgate, as it was
highly regarded as an infallible, divinely inspired
text. Even the translations produced by
Protestants, that sought to replace
the Vulgate with vernacular versions translated from the original
languages, could not avoid the
enormous influence of
Saint Jerome's translation in its dignified
style and flowing prose.
The closest equivalent in English, the King
James Version, or Authorised Version, shows a marked
influence from the
Vulgate in the vigorous rhythm of its
prose and
poetry.
The Vulgate was
designed to be both more accurate and easier to
understand than its
predecessors. The Vulgate was the first, and for many centuries the
only, Christian Bible translation
that translated the Old Testament
directly from the Hebrew original rather than indirectly from the Greek Septuagint.
Saint Jerome was
responsible for at least three slightly different versions of the
Vulgate. The Romana Vulgate was the first, but it
was soon replaced by later versions except in Britain, where it continued to be
used until the Norman Conquest in 1066.
Next was the Gallicana
Vulgate, which Saint Jerome produced a
few years later. It had some minor improvements, especially in the
Old Testament.
The Hispana
Vulgate is largely identical to the Romana Vulgate except for the
book of Psalms, which Saint
Jerome re-translated from the Hebrew for this version.
The Latin
Bible used before the Vulgate is
usually referred to as the Vetus Latina, or Old Latin
Bible, or occasionally the Old Latin
Vulgate.
The Old Latin Vulgate remained in use in some
circles even after Saint Jerome's Vulgate
became the accepted standard throughout the Western
Roman Catholic Church. Some Gauls or
Celts continued to prefer the Old Latin Vulgate for centuries.
This Old Latin Vulgate was not translated by
a single individual or
institution, nor even uniformly
edited. Each
book varies in quality of translation
and style. The Old Latin Vulgate Old
Testament books were most likely translated from the Greek Septuagint, not from the Hebrew.
The Clementine Vulgate is the one most familiar to
Catholics who have
lived prior to the reforms of Vatican
II .
Over the course of the Middle Ages, the original
Vulgate of Saint Jerome had succumbed
to the inevitable changes wrought by human error in the countless copying of
the text in monasteries across Europe.
There were efforts to purify the corrupted text,
notably by Alcuin of York in the early 9th century during the reign of
Charlemagne. This correction was the basis for the Paris edition that was
widely disseminated among the clergy in northwestern Europe.
Though the advent of printing greatly reduced the
potential of human
error and increased the consistency and
uniformity of the text, even the Vulgate
as produced by Gutenberg was not entirely without
mistakes as the several editions of
the first printed work varied one from the
other. After the
Reformation, when the
Church of Rome strove to counter the
attacks and refute the doctrines of Protestantism, the Vulgate was
reaffirmed in the Council of Trent as the sole, authorized
text of the Bible. To reinforce this declaration, an
attempt was made to standardize the spelling and overall
text of the Vulgate out of the countless
editions written during the Middle Ages.
The actual first manifestation
of this authorized text was sponsored by
Pope Sixtus V (1585-90), known as the Sistine
Vulgate, but was soon repudiated with the advent of the next
pope, Clement VIII (1592-1605) who immediately
ordered a new edition.
This Clementine Vulgate of 1592 became
the standard Bible
text of the Catholic Church until the 1960s, when
worship in vernacular languages
was permitted.
The Nova Vulgata is currently the
official Latin version published and
approved by the Roman Catholic
Church. The Nova Vulgata was commissioned in 1907 by
Pope Pius X of the Benedictine Monastery in Rome, though many decades would pass before it
would be completed. The main difference between the Nova Vulgata and the
Vulgata Clementina is that it takes account of the modern textual
criticism of recent years and in places reflects the changes in such
texts as the United
Bible Society's critical
text.
There are also a number of changes where the modern
scholars felt that
Saint Jerome had failed to grasp the meaning
of the original languages.
The Nova Vulgata does not contain those
books, found in some editions of the
Vulgate, that are considered apocryphal by the
Roman Catholic Church -- for example
the 3rd and 4th book of Ezra.
Its spelling also reflects a more Classical leaning than the Renaissance
spelling of the Clementine edition.
The Nova Vulgata has
not been widely embraced by conservative Catholics, as it sounds unfamiliar
compared to the Clementine, a fact
common in the
history of the Bible as new translations attempt to
supplant older, more familiar ones.
The Stuttgart Vulgate
published by the German BibleSociety
(Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft), based in Stuttgart. This edition, Biblia Sacra
Vulgata, seeks to reproduce the
original, pure Vulgate
text that Saint Jerome would have produced 1,600
years ago.
The Stuttgart Vulgate attempts, through
critical comparison of important, historical editions of the Vulgate, to
achieve the original text, cleansed of the
errors of a millennium and a half's time. The main critical
source for the Stuttgart Vulgate is
Codex Amiatinus, the highly-esteemed 8th century, one-volume manuscript
of the whole Latin
Bible produced in England, regarded as
the best medieval witness to Saint Jerome's
original text.
Depending on your point of
view, one of the
beauties or one of the problems with the
Bible is that, by carefully picking
and choosing your passages, you can get anything you want out of it.
Using passages from the canonical gospels, scholars,
theologians, and lay alike have ‘proven'
that Jesus was a pharisee, an
Essene, a revolutionary zealot intent on
overthrowing Roman
occupation, a
Kabbalist mystic, a Marxist, a supply-side
Republican, and even a
Taoist. (Of course
others have also found passages to
repudiate all of these assertions.)
Over
time, as we all
know, everything decays or becomes
corrupt. This would have been the case with
the original writings about Jesus.
The written texts that now
exist were not written by apostles of
Jesus but rather were copies of
texts of Jesus' teaching.
We have no
way of knowing exactly what changes were made and
what was added to the original texts dealing
with Jesus but
research suggests that the original
texts were simply the statements and sermons of
Jesus which were later elaborated
upon.
Many, many men spent their entire
lives REFINING? the
religion which we now call
Christianity. There was much debate about who wrote what and what
was true as
opposed to what was
heretical even in the first century after
the birth of Jesus. The process of
selection and status gradually evolved, and even the Bible itself tells us that what we
currently have is not the full story or
a complete image.
Within a
century, at least one generation removed from the
living
Jesus, the first great challenge
arose with the groundswell of gnostic
thought threatening to undermine the
still-entrenching Roman ‘orthodox'
church.
Gnosticism is
ultimately a religion of
redemption -
wisdom of truth gained through the coupling ofexperience with
knowledge.
Clement of Alexandria
used the term ‘gnostic' to describe
anyone who had penetrated deeper into the mysteries of
Truth.
The
gnostic universally heralded
Jesus as the one who brought this
knowledge of the
Truth.
Titus Flavius Clemens,
Clement of Alexandria, succeeded his mentor, Pantaenus, as head of the
catechetical school at Alexandria to
become the intellectual
leader of the Christian community in
Alexandria, Egypt for the last two decades of the 2nd century after the birth
of Jesus.
Titus Flavius Clemens emphasized the permanent
importance of the use of philosophy to
understand the relation between
knowledge and
faith. As
faith involves a comprehensive
knowledge of the
essentials, knowledge allows the
believer to penetrate deeply into the
understanding of what he
actually believes and by so doing
perfect his
faith.
In order to attain the
"faith of
knowledge," to find the
Truth, which is so much higher than
the mere "faith of conjecture," or
simple reception of a truth on authority,
philosophy is permanently necessary.
Faith of
knowledge, the
Truth, is the foundation of
enlightenment. Against
those who professed esoteric
knowledge and that the
Truth was all that was needed Titus
Flavius Clemens argued correctly that a moral
life was the test of real
wisdom. Against anti-intellectual pietists, Clement
of Alexandria championed the ideal of
spiritual enlightenment. Titus Flavius Clemens
characterization of the real Christian as an
intellectual whose
life is a moral example for
others
influenced the
development of the monastic
ideal.
During
the persecution of Alexandrian Christians, Titus Flavius Clemens found refuge
in Jerusalem. Titus Flavius Clemens was succeeded at Alexandria by his
brilliant protégé, Origen.
The
Roman Catholics attempted early on to
stamp out any train of thought, to
destroy any branch and any
text of the Christian
religion which did not strictly adhere to
Roman Catholic cannon.
After the gnostic confrontation and until the
Reformation, the
Roman Catholic Church was the
overwhelmingly dominant
force in Christianity. The rigid,
entrenched mentality of Catholic
orthodoxy must be taken into account in any reasonable examination of the
Christian religion.
Schisms, dissensions, and new
ideas were crushed by a pronouncement of
spiritual death (excommunication) or
physical death (inquisition/crusade.) This
Dogma by definition was and is not to be challenged;
dogma is inflexible to change: God is supernatural (outside of
nature); God is
three-in-one, (the
Father, the
Son and the
Holy Spirit); God requires humans to worship him as a
human
Emperor (descended
God) on Earth is
worshiped; that something called the soul
(which exists outside of
nature) is condemned by God
to a place called hell unless one
believes in and follows the
religious dogma
of whichever sect or cult one has joined or been born into; that to some,
belief in their sect or cults
religious dogma
guarantees one a secure position in the nether realm of
heaven; that to
others good works and belief are necessary to gain admission to
heaven, and that to still
others good works, belief and a following of
religious law is the only way to gain admission to
heaven.
The Roman
Catholic Church needed then and needs now to control the information made available to the
public about Jesus. Without a uniform religion the
Catholics
realized they would
lose control of adherents. It was from this
Roman Catholic Church that the
ultimate lists of approved, canonical, and heretical texts issued.
Even
within what is now the
Catholic Church there has always been
dissension.
The Synoptic Gospels, Gospel of Matthew, Gospel of Mark
and Gospel of Luke, order of creation was
debated and revised.
The Gospel of John was considered
heretical and was added later.
Revelation was considered
heretical and then added later.
The first commentary made on the Gospel of John was
by the gnostics Ptolemy and Heracleon, as
quoted by Irenaeus and Origen. The
Gospel of John is a highly
intellectual account of
Jesus' life which would have required a
good level of education and was penned by John the
presbyter (priest) as
opposed to John the Apostle who was an
uneducated fisherman. John the presbyter penned Revelation as
well.
Christian writers before 150 years after the birth
of Jesus do not generally refer to
any document (including the canonical gospels) as their
source for
Jesus' sayings. The
Synoptics were originally anonymous, and decisions of authorship came
about in the 2nd century based on legend.
1st century Christianity and Judaism was practiced primarily as an oral
cultural tradition.There are several references to
the "words of
Jesus". Early collections of
Jesus sayings are more than likely,
fragments still
exist. During this period of
human
history writing down long drawn out
stories was not the standard procedure
while writing down the sayings of the Buddha,
Confucious or Lao Tze was the standard procedure.
The Gospel of Thomas, which was
discovered less than a century ago,
is evidence that such collections originally did
exist.
The
idea that the Greek gospels are based on
primitive collection of sayings (Greek: logia) goes back to the very first
commentary on the gospels. Early in the 2nd century after the birth of
Jesus, Papias reported that Matthew
compiled the logia of Jesus which
others interpreted as best they
could. Papias penned, a 5 volume commentary on the sayings of
Jesus from the accounts of second
generation church leaders, entitled an
Exposition of the Oracles of the Lord.
The Exposition of the
Oracles of the Lord to this date provide the earliest record of the
composition of the gospels. Papias' work is
among the many texts claimed to be
known to ancient Christians that were
destroyed by the
Roman Catholic Church.
From a
fragment from the Exposition of
the Oracles of the Lord by Papias we learn that;
Papias affirms
that he received the sayings of the apostles from those who accompanied them,
and he moreover asserts that he heard
with his own ears Aristion and the presbyter John. Papias mentions them
frequently by name, and in his
writings gives their traditions. Papias
relates other miraculous deeds, stating that he acquired the
knowledge of them from oral
tradition.
Papias also relates
that he had received a wonderful narrative from the daughters of the
Apostle Philip in Hierapolis. Papias relates that a dead man was raised to
life in his day. Papias also mentions
another
miracle relating to Justus, surnamed
Barsabas, how Justus swallowed a deadly poison, and received no
harm, on account of the
grace of
Jesus.
Papias set down
other
things as coming to him from
unwritten tradition, strange parables
and instructions of Jesus - and
some other
things of a more fabulous
nature. One of these predicts that a
millennium after the Jesus'
resurrection from death, when the personal
reign of Jesus will be established
on this Earth. Papias moreover
hands down, in his own writing,
other
narratives given by the previously
mentioned Aristion of Jesus'
sayings, and the traditions of the
presbyter John.
Papias has given in the following
words regarding the Gospel of
Mark:
"And the presbyter said this: Mark having become the
interpreter of Peter, wrote down accurately whatsoever he
remembered. It was not, however, in exact
order that he related the sayings or deeds of
Jesus. For he neither
heard
Jesus nor accompanied Him. But
afterwards, as I said, he accompanied Peter, who accommodated his instructions
to the necessities, but with no intention of giving a regular
narrative of
Jesus' sayings. Wherefore Mark made
no mistake in thus writing some
things as he
remembered them. For of one
thing he took especial care, not to
omit anything he had heard, and not to
put anything fictitious into the statements."
With regard to the
Gospel of Matthew, Papias has made the following statement:
"Matthew put together the oracles in the Hebrew
language, and each one interpreted
them as best he could. The same writer used proofs from the First Epistle of
John, and from the Epistle of Peter in like manner."
Papias
also gives another story of a woman
who was accused of many sins before
Jesus, which is to be found in the
Gospel according to the Hebrews.
This
fragment of the Exposition of
the Oracles of the Lord by Papias translated by the Reverend Alexander
Roberts and James Donaldson. Excerpted from Volume I of The Ante-Nicene Fathers
(Reverend Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, editors); American Edition
copyright © 1885
History is a
chronicle of a conflict that is written
by the winners of the conflict.
In the first few centuries, there were a number
of conflicts over which direction the
Roman Catholic Church would take. The
earliest was Paul, who according to Epiphanius
of Salamis was a Greek, versus James, the brother of
Jesus, also
known as James the Just. The
followers of Paul won, so it is no surprise
Paul's writing dominates the
New Testament and that
Paul is portrayed by
other gospels, Luke and Acts, in a
glowing light.
This form of
Christianity is called Pauline
Christianity.
Modern scholars believe that
Jesus preached mainly to
Jews as he was baptized by John the Baptist whose
opinions he would have shared. James, as
leader of the Jerusalem Church, taught
both Aramaic and Greek speakers whereas Paul,
as the 'Apostle to the Gentiles,' made the teaching of
Jesus relevant and interesting to
the polytheistic gentiles.
In order for the fledgling Christianity to gain
attention in the popular culture, the
religion had to obtain certain
characteristics common to the
other
gods and religions of that time. In
the 4th century the 'official' form
of Christianity, basically Pauline
Christianity, was protected by
Constantine, and formalized, as
"Nicene Christianity" at the Council of Nicaea, 325, and was finally authorized
by imperial sanction in the Theodosian
decrees of 391 in both the Eastern and Western
Roman Empire.
The Gospel of Thomas was one of the gospels that did not
make the final cut and is a collection of over one hundred statements made by
Jesus. Although it is
known to be a corrupted text, as it was transcribed from Greek to
Coptic, about half of the sayings have direct parallels to sayings recorded in
the canonical gospels, and much of the other half can be linked
theologically to the rest of the
New Testament.
The
existence of the Gospel of Thomas has been
known to scholars since the origins of
Christianity, but no copies were known to
have survived any of the
puritanical purges. The work is mentioned by
the early Roman Catholic Church
fathers in a negative context.
Throughout the
text of the Gospel of
Thomas, Jesus offers
numerous ways to attain the
kingdom of heaven. This makes
redemption a personal
thing for the
reader and bypasses the need
for a priest or an organized church
hierarchy.
Around 233,
Origen, mentions the Gospel of Thomas on a list of Coptic gospels. In 1952 it
was established that Papyrus 1 and 655 were also
fragments of the Gospel of Thomas.
The Gospel of Thomas
was never cannonized and was found to be heretical because it encourages the
reader to
think for himself! Origen was
the most prolific and influential Christian writer prior to the legalization of
Christianity by Rome.
Origen was responsible for the
intellectual
triumph of
Catholic Christianity over the
gnostic and pagan cults of Christianity.
Origen distinguished between different
types of biblical interpretation, historical, moral and spiritual, and argued that biblical works
were primarily theological
compositions.
This created real
problems of interpretation at the
historical and
moral levels and because of this
Origen was
condemned as a
heretic by the
Roman Catholic Church a century after
his death.
The Roman
Catholic Church has always fought against those who would use the
path of
knowledge to attain the kingdom of
heaven; claiming that the
path to
heaven lies in unquestioning
faith in precepts and pronouncements of
the Holy Roman Catholic Church. This
is also true of many of religious
sects. In 1958,
Professor Morton Smith of Columbia University was visiting a Greek Orthodox
monastery near Jerusalem. Morton Smith found an excerpt of a letter from
Clement of Alexandria to Theodore. Theodore had written to Clement seeking
advice concerning a gnostic sect. This
sect was using what was considered a ‘secret' version of Gospel of
Mark. Theodore was asking for advice on how to deal with the
problem.
"For, even if they say
something true, one who loves the
truth should not, even so, agree with them. To
them, therefore one must never give way, nor, concede that the ‘secret' Gospel is by Mark, but
should even deny it on oath. " - Clement of Alexandria
Clement acknowledges that there is a
secret Gospel of Mark and
asks Theodore to deny to his brethren that it exists under oath!
The First Council of Nicaea,
held in Nicea in Bithynia, convoked by the imperial Roman Emperor Constantine I in 325,
was the first ecumenical conference of bishops of the
imperial Roman Catholic Church, and
resulted in the first uniform Christian
doctrine.
With the creation of the
Nicene Creed, a precedent was established for
subsequent 'general (ecumenical) councils of Bishops' (Synods) to
create
statements of
belief and canons of
doctrinal orthodoxy - the intent being to create unity of belief for the whole of Christendom.
One purpose of the council was
to resolve disagreements in the Church of Alexandria over the
nature of Jesus in
relationship to the
Father; in particular, whether
Jesus was of the same or merely of similar substance as God
the Father.
St. Alexander of Alexandria and Athanasius took the first
position; the popular presbyter Arius, from whom the term Arian controversy
comes, took the second. The council decided against the Arians overwhelmingly.
The council also decided in favor of
celebrating the date of the Christian Passover on the first Sunday after the
first full moon following the Vernal
Equinox.
The First Council of
Nicaea was historically significant because it was the first effort to
attain consensus in the fellowship of Christ through an assembly representing
institutionalized Christendom. With
the creation of the
Nicene Creed, a precedent was established for
subsequent general councils to create a
statement of belief and
canons of doctrinal orthodoxy hoping to
create a textual
source that would unify Christendom.
The Council of Rome which
took place in 381 under the authority of Pope
Damasus I concluded with Pope Damasus I
issuing the following decree:
Now, indeed, we must treat of the divine
Scriptures: what the universal Catholic
Church accepts and what she must shun. The list of the Old Testament
begins:
Genesis, one
book; Exodus, one
book: Leviticus, one
book; Numbers, one
book; Deuteronomy, one
book; Jesus Nave, one
book; of Judges, one
book; Ruth, one
book; Kings, four books;
Paralipomenon, two books; One Hundred and Fifty Psalms, one
book; of Solomon, three books:
Proverbs, one book;
Ecclesiastes, one book;
Canticle of Canticles, one book;
likewise, Wisdom, one
book; Ecclesiasticus (Sirach), one
book;
Likewise, the list of the
prophets: Isaiah, one
book; Jeremias, one
book; along with Cinoth, that
is, his Lamentations; Ezechiel, one book; Daniel, one
book; Osee, one
book; Amos, one
book; Micheas, one
book; Joel, one
book; Abdias, one
book; Jonas, one
book; Nahum, one
book; Habacuc, one
book; Sophonias, one
book; Aggeus, one
book; Zacharias, one
book; Malachias, one
book.
Likewise, the list of
histories: Job, one book;
Tobias, one book; Esdras,
two books; Esther, one book;
Judith, one book; of
Maccabees, two books.
Likewise,
the list of the Scriptures of the New and Eternal Testament, which the
Holy Catholic Church receives: of the
Gospels, one book according to
Matthew, one book according to
Mark, one book according to
Luke, one book according to
John. The Epistles of the Apostle Paul, fourteen in number: one to the
Romans, two to the Corinthians, one to the Ephesians, two
to the Thessalonians, one to the Galatians, one to the
Philippians, one to the Colossians, two to Timothy, one to
Titus one to Philemon, one to the Hebrews.
Likewise,
one book of the
Apocalypse of John. And the Acts
of the Apostles, one book. Likewise,
the canonical Epistles, seven in number: of the Apostle Peter, two Epistles; of
the Apostle James, one Epistle; of the Apostle John, one Epistle; of the
other John, a Presbyter, two
Epistles; of the Apostle Jude the Zealot, one Epistle. Thus concludes the canon
of the New Testament.
The remaining
writings which have been compiled or been recognized by heretics or schismatics
the Catholic and Apostolic Roman
Church does not in any way receive; of these we have
thought it right to cite below a few which
have been handed down and which are to
be avoided by Catholics as they are
considered apocryphal Firstly we confess that the synod of Sirmium
called together by Constantius Caesar the son of
Constantine through the Prefect
Taurus is damned then, now and forever.
The Itinerary in the
name of Peter the apostle, which is called the nine
books of the
holy Clement; the Acts in the name of
the apostle Andrew; the Acts in the name of the apostle Thomas; the Acts in the
name of the apostle Peter; the Acts in the name of the apostle Philip; the
Gospel in the name of Mathias; the Gospel in the name of Barnabas; the Gospel
in the name of James the younger; the Gospel in the name of the apostle Peter;
the Gospel in the name of Thomas which the Manichaeans use; the Gospels in the
name of Bartholomew; the Gospels in the name of Andrew; the Gospels, which
Lucianus forged; the Gospels which Hesychius forged; the
book on the infancy of the saviour;
the book of the nativity of the
saviour and of Mary or the midwife; the book which is called by the name of the
Shepherd; all the books which
Leucius the disciple of the devil made; the
book which is called the Foundation;
the book which is called the
Treasure; the book of the daughters
of Adam Leptogeneseos; the cento on Jesus put together in Virgilian
verses; the book which is called the
Acts of Thecla and Paul; the
book which is called Nepos'; the
books of Proverbs written by
heretics and prefixed with the name of holy Sixtus; the Revelation which is called
Paul's; the Revelation which is called
Thomas'; the Revelation which is called Stephen's; the
book which is called the Assumption
of holy Mary; the
book which is called the Repentance
of Adam; the book about Gog the
giant of whom the heretics assert that after the deluge he fought with the
dragon; the book which is called the
Testament of Job; the book which is
called the Repentance of Origen;
the book which is called the
Repentance of holy Cyprian; the
book which is called the Repentance
of Jamne and Mambre; the book which
is called the Lots of the Apostles; the book which is called the grave-plate
(?) of the Apostles; the book which
is called the canons of the Apostles; the
book Physiologus written by heretics
and prefixed with the name of blessed Ambrose; the
history of Eusebius Pampilii; the
works of Tertullian; the works of Lactantius also known as Firmianus; the works
of Africanus; the works of Postumianus and Gallus; the works of Montanus,
Priscilla and Maximilla; the works of Faustus the Manichaean; the works of
Commodian; the works of the other
Clement, of Alexandria; the works of Thascius Cyprianus; the works of Arnobius;
the works of Tichonius; the works of Cassian the Gallic
priest; the works of Victorinus of Pettau;
the works of Faustus of Riez in Gaul; the works of Frumentius Caecus; the cento
on Jesus stitched together from
verses of Virgil; the Letter from Jesus to Abgar; the Letter of Abgar to
Jesus; the Passion of Cyricus and
Julitta; the Passion of Georgius; the writing which is called the Interdiction
of Solomon; all amulets which are compiled not in the name of the angels as
they pretend but are written in the names of great demons.
These and
those similar ones, which Simon Magus, Nicolaus, Cerinthus, Marcion, Basilides,
Ebion, Paul of Samosata, Photinus and Bonosus, who
suffered from similar
error, also Montanus with his obscene
followers, Apollinaris, Valentinus the
Manichaean, Faustus the African, Sabellius, Arius, Macedonius, Eunomius,
Novatus, Sabbatius, Calistus, Donatus, Eustasius, Jovianus, Pelagius, Julian of
Eclanum, Caelestius, Maximian, Priscillian from Spain, Nestorius of
Constantinople, Maximus the Cynic,
Lampetius, Dioscorus, Eutyches, Peter and the
other Peter, of whom one disgraced
Alexandria and the other Antioch,
Acacius of Constantinople with his associates, and what also all disciples of
heresy and of the heretics and schismatics, whose names we have scarcely
preserved, have taught or compiled, we acknowledge is to be not merely rejected
but eliminated from the
whole
Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church
and with their authors and the followers of
its authors to be damned in the inextricable shackles of anathema
forever.
It is extremely amazing
that ‘Christian literalists'
have ‘faith' and ‘believe' that the
books of the
New Testament are
pure as the driven snow, have never
been edited, corrected, redacted, combined, added to, re-edited, re-corrected
and corrupted by the very group that
Protestants condemn as a cult, the
Holy Roman Catholic Church of
scribes/priests/monks, management
and of course the chief executive officer, the
Pope.
"Catholics and non-Catholics alike need to
recognize the fact that the church is a human
institution, overseen by
men with
human
faults." - Michael Miyamoto
The truth is this:
If we
look at the New Testament as a
literal accurate account (like
network and cable news?) of what
actually occurred when Jesus walked
the Earth then we will fail to ‘see' the truth
within the
text.
Jesus'
original works were in words not in
writing. Many different men, with many different
opinions, wrote down the oral accounts of
the works, the words and the
life of Jesus embellishing and refining as
they saw fit according to their own belief
system, a
system unique to the
individual
believer.
With this
understanding we can
respect every
living thing that
God has brought into
creation for what it is: the breath of
God breathed into inanimate matter,
life.
If you see life as a horrible, ugly
thing then you have entirely missed
the message of Jesus'
word that
Jesus gave his
life to bring to you.
Jesus told us that the attitude we
have when living our lives is what saddles
us with our own personal hell or
showers us with our own personal heaven in
this life on Earth.
Redemption comes from
understanding one's own
fallibility and working to correct
that fallibility the correction of which frees the soul
in this life, right now, as opposed to some
mythical afterlife that has never been shown to actually
exist in reality.
In this
way we
learn to walk with
God, we learn to
feel ourselves holding the
divine spark of
God's love,
life, as a precious
thing never to be taken except as
required for basic sustenance.
Here follows many of the
sayings of Jesus from the Gospel of
Thomas: Jesus said,
"Those who know all, but are lacking in
knowing themselves, are utterly lacking."
Jesus said, "Those who seek should not
stop seeking until they find. When they find, they will be disturbed. When they
are disturbed, they will marvel, and
will reign over all."
Jesus
said, "I disclose mysteries to those who are
worthy of my mysteries.
Jesus said, "Know what is in front of your face, and what
is hidden from you will be disclosed to you. For there is nothing hidden that
will not be revealed."
Jesus said, "Do not
lie, and do not do what you hate, because
all things are disclosed before
heaven. After all, there is nothing hidden
that will not be revealed, and there is nothing covered up that will remain
undisclosed."
Jesus said,
"I have cast fire upon the
Earth, and look, I'm guarding it until it
blazes."
Jesus said, "I am the
light that is over all
things. I am all: from me all came
forth, and to me all attained. Split a piece of
wood; I am there. Lift up the stone, and
you will find me there."
Jesus said, "If you bring forth what
is within you, what you have will
save you. If you do not have that
within you, what you do not have
within you will
kill you."
Jesus said, "Images are visible to
people, but the
light
within them is hidden in the
image of the
Father's
light. The
Father will be disclosed, but
his image is hidden by his
light."
Jesus said, "I will give you what no
eye has seen, what no ear has
heard, what no
hand has touched, what has not arisen
in the human
heart."
Jesus said, "Love your friends like your own
soul, protect them like the pupil of your
eye."
Jesus said, "You see the sliver in
your friend's eye, but you don't see the
timber in your own eye. When you take the
timber out of your own eye, then you will see
well enough to remove the sliver from your friend's
eye."
Jesus said, "When you see one who was
not born of woman, fall on your faces and worship. That one is your
Father."
Jesus said, "If the
flesh came into
being because of
spirit, that is a
marvel, but if
spirit came into
being because of the
body, that is a
marvel of
marvels. Yet I
marvel at how this great
wealth has come to dwell in this
flesh."
Jesus said, "Have you found the
beginning, then, that you are looking for
the end? You see, the end will be where the beginning is. Congratulations to the one who
stands at the
beginning: that one will
know the end and will not
taste death."
Jesus said, "This
heaven will pass away, and the one above it
will pass away. The dead are not
alive, and the
living will not
die. During the days when you ate what is
dead, you made it come
alive. When you are in the
light, what will you do? On the day when you
were one, you became two. But when you become two, what will you do?"
Jesus said, "I took my
stand on the
Earth, and in flesh I appeared to them. I found them all drunk,
and I did not find any of them thirsty. My soul
ached for the children of humanity,
because they are blind in their
hearts and do not
see, for they came onto the
Earth empty, and they also seek to depart from
the Earth empty. But meanwhile they are drunk.
When they shake off their wine, then they will change their
ways."
Jesus said, "What you will
hear in your ear, in the
other ear proclaim from your
rooftops. After all, no one lights a lamp and
puts it under a basket, nor does one put it in a hidden place. Rather, one puts
it on a lamp stand so that all who
come and go will see its light."
Jesus said, "A
city built on a high
hill and fortified cannot fall, nor can it be hidden."
Jesus said, "If a
blind
individual leads a
blind
individual, both of them will
fall into a hole."
Jesus
said, "When you strip without being ashamed, and you take your clothes and put
them under your feet like little children and trample them, then will see the
son of the living one and you will not be
afraid."
Jesus said, "The
Pharisees and the scholars have taken the keys of
knowledge and have hidden them. They have
not entered nor have they allowed those who want to enter to do so. As for you,
be as sly as snakes and as simple as
doves."
Jesus said, "Grapes are not harvested
from thorn trees, nor are figs gathered from thistles, for they yield no fruit.
Good individuals produce
good from what they've stored up;
evil individuals produce
evil from the wickedness they have stored up in
their hearts, and say
evil things. For from the overflow of the
heart they produce
evil."
Jesus said, "From Adam to John the
Baptist, among those born of women, no one is so much greater than John the
Baptist that his eyes should not be averted. But I have said that whoever among
you becomes a child will recognize the kingdom and will become greater than
John."
Jesus said, "An
individual cannot mount two
horses or bend two bows. And a slave
cannot serve two masters, otherwise that slave will honor the one and offend the
other. Nobody drinks aged wine and
immediately wants to drink young wine. Young wine is not poured into old
wineskins, or they might break, and aged wine is not poured into a new
wineskin, or it might spoil. An old patch is not sewn onto a new garment, since
it would create a tear."
Jesus said, "If two make
peace with each
other in a single house, they will
say to the mountain, 'Move from here!' and
it will move."
Jesus said, "Congratulations to those
who are alone and chosen, for you will find the
kingdom. For you have come from it,
and you will return there
again."
His disciples said to
Jesus, "When will the rest for the
dead take place, and when will the new world come?"
Jesus said to them, "What you are
looking forward to has come, but you do not know it."
His
disciples said to
Jesus, "Is circumcision useful or
not?"
Jesus said to them,
"If it were useful, the Father
would produce children already circumcised from their
mother. Rather, the
true circumcision in
spirit has become
profitable in every regard."
Jesus said, "Congratulations to the
individual who has toiled and
has found life."
Jesus said, "Look to the
living one as long as you
live, otherwise you might
die and then try to
see the living one, and you will be unable to
see."
Jesus said to her, "I am the one who
comes from what is whole. I was
granted from the things of my
Father."
"I am your
disciple."
"For this reason I say,
if one is whole, one will be filled
with light, but if one is
divided, one will be filled with
darkness."
Jesus said,
"Show me the stone that the builders rejected: that is the
keystone."
Jesus said, "Congratulations to those
who have been persecuted in their hearts:
they are the ones who have truly come to
know the
Father. Congratulations to
those who go hungry, so the stomach of the one in want may be filled."
Jesus
said, "The Father's
kingdom is like a merchant who
had a supply of merchandise and found a pearl. That merchant was prudent; he
sold the merchandise and bought the single pearl for himself. So also with you,
seek his treasure that is unfailing, that is enduring, where no moth comes to eat and no worm
destroys."
Jesus said, "Why have you come out to
the countryside? To see a reed shaken by the wind? And to see an
individual dressed in soft
clothes, rulers and your powerful ones?
They are dressed in soft clothes, and they cannot
understand
truth."
Jesus said, "If your
leaders say to you, 'Look, the
Father's
kingdom is in the
sky,' then the birds of the
sky will precede you. If they say to you, ' The
Father's
kingdom in the sea,' then the
fish will precede you. Rather, the Father's
kingdom is
within you and it is
outside you. When you
know yourselves, then you will be
known, and you will
understand that you are
children of the
living
Father. But if you do not
know yourselves, then you live in
spiritual corruption
and you are spiritually
corrupt."
Jesus said,
"Often you have desired to
hear these sayings that I am speaking
to you, and you have no one else from whom to
| | |