Why the Gospel of Thomas was banned by the church

Why was the Gospel of Thomas banned by the church?

I believe the reason why the church considered the Gospel of Thomas to be anathema was because the story in Matthew that records Jesus as saying to Simon, "You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church" is significantly different in Thomas.

Matthew 16:13-17 in the NIV reads:

¹³ When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?”

¹⁴ They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”

¹⁵ “But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?”

¹⁶ Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”

¹⁷ Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven. ¹⁸ And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.

The parallel passage in Thomas (logion 13, Lambdin translation) reads:

Jesus said to his disciples, "Compare me to someone and tell me whom I am like." 
Simon Peter said to him, "You are like a righteous angel." 
Matthew said to him, "You are like a wise philosopher." 
Thomas said to him, "Master, my mouth is wholly incapable of saying whom you are like." 
Jesus said, "I am not your master. Because you have drunk, you have become intoxicated from the bubbling spring which I have measured out." 
And he took him and withdrew and told him three things. When Thomas returned to his companions, they asked him, "What did Jesus say to you?" 
Thomas said to them, "If I tell you one of the things which he told me, you will pick up stones and throw them at me; a fire will come out of the stones and burn you up."

The two accounts clearly retell the same incident, but the differences are striking. In the Matthew passage, Jesus renames Simon as Peter. The early church, based in Rome, developed its idea of being authoritative from this passage. According to tradition, Peter was the first Pope, and all popes since then have been the spiritual heirs of Peter. In the Thomas passage, Jesus denies Messiahship, saying instead that the Father has empowered Thomas to be his twin. 

There are many things we can say about the words used here. Firstly, Jesus was of course a Jew and not a Christian, but Matthew has Jesus using the word 'church'--surely an anachronism? And secondly, the name 'Peter' in Greek means 'rock'. For me, this is a cleverly written and structured piece of persuasive writing.

So too is the Thomas passage, for the name 'Thomas' means 'twin', and we will dream forever about "the things that he told me", what they might have been...

However, the reason the church wanted this gospel destroyed is, I believe, simply because its existence removes the papacy's claim to being the Christian movement's legitimate authority.

Just for today

Just for today,
I will let go of anger.
Just for today,
I will let go of worry.
Just for today,
I will be kind to my neighbour
and every living thing.
Just for today,
I will do my work honestly.
Just for today,
I will feel gratitude.
Just for today;
every day.

Principles of Reiko-Do (adapted)

Echart Tolle, Byron Katie: Born of Desperation?

I suppose most readers of this blog have also read something of Echart Tolle and Byron Katie and probably also noticed how very Zen-like their books, The Power of Now and Loving What Is are. I know quite a few individuals whose lives have been radically changed by reading these two books.

Well, what is also interesting is the similarity in the biographical prefaces to these two books. Both authors, according to testimony, were almost incapacitated by depression when they experienced their epiphanies: Byron Katie:
In the midst of an ordinary life -- two marriages, three children, a successful career -- Katie had entered a ten-year-long downward spiral into rage, paranoia, and despair. For two years she was so depressed that she could seldom manage to leave her house; she stayed in bed for weeks at a time, doing business by telephone from her bedroom, unable even to bathe or brush her teeth. Her children would tiptoe past her door to avoid her outbursts of rage. Finally, she checked in to a halfway house for women with eating disorders, the only facility that her insurance company would pay for. The other residents were so frightened of her that she was placed alone in an attic room.
Echart Tolle:
One night, not long after my 29th birthday, I woke up in the early hours with a feeling of absoute dread. I had woken up with such a feeling many times before, but this time it was more intense than it had ever been before. The silence of the night, the vague outlines of furniture in the dark room, the distant noise of a passing train -- everything felt so alien, so hostile, and so utterly meaningless, that it created a deep loathing in me: a deep loathing of the world. The most loathsome thing of all, however, was my own existence. What was the point in continuing to live with this burden of misery? Why carry on with this continuous struggle? I could feel that a deep longing for annihilation, for non-existence, was now becoming much stronger than the instinctive desire to continue to live. 'I cannot live with myself any longer.' This was the thought that kept repeating itself in my mind.

Were these authors' breakthroughs born of desperation? Certainly their testimonies are moments of sudden illumination, akin to Zen teaching that enlightenment can arrive suddenly, in an instant, not through long periods of study or even discipline. What appears to be important --as always-- is the burning desire to change, and the willingness to let everything go, to risk everything on that desire to change. Haaa! Enlightenment is not for the timid! [?] :)

The Buddha's 'Flower sermon' (Transmission of Zen)

'The Buddha stood beside a lake on Mount Grdhakuta and prepared to give a sermon to his disciples who were gathering there to hear him speak. As the Buddha waited for his students to settle down, he noticed a golden lotus blooming in the muddy water nearby. He pulled the plant out of the water - flower, long stem, and root. Then he held it up high for all his students to see.
For a long time he stood there, saying nothing, just holding up the lotus and looking into the blank faces of his audience. Suddenly his disciple, Mahakashyapa, smiled. He understood! What did Mahakashyapa understand? Everybody wants to know. For centuries everybody's been asking, "What message did the Buddha give to Mahakashyapa?"'

When Mahakashyapa smiled, what was he smiling at? There have been many suggestions, but I think we can reject all the figurative, allegorical, speculative and fanciful ones like 'Buddha trinity', representation of the Chakras etc. If we think of the flower, we can see that it is perfect, it is a real flower. It didn't become a perfect flower through thinking about it or planning to be a flower; it didn't dream of becoming a flower; it didn't study hard to become a flower. It didn't chant or pray to become a flower. Becoming a flower was its essential nature; it flowered because it was a flower. Maybe you are thinking, 'oh, that's no big deal, it was just a flower.' But that is a big deal. It was just a flower. For, you know, in Zen, that small word "just" is a big word.

I don't know if you have ever been to Kruger Park, in South Africa. Kruger Park is as big as Belgium-- a park full of animals, not people. Most tourists who go there go there looking for the 'Big Five': elephants, lions, and so on. And they can see them,they can find them. But the first animals they will see there are usually these antelope they call impala or maybe the wild pigs known as warthogs. And usually, most tourists just drive straight past the antelopes and pigs, searching for the Big Five. You know, those impalas and warthogs are beautiful creatures, and they are perfect. But to tourists they are just impalas and just warthogs, so they don't stop and look at them. Their heads are full of the Big Five.

The Buddha held up a flower. That was his sermon, his wordless sermon. And Mahakashyapa looked; and Mahakashyapa understood. Because the flower was true to its essential nature, it was beautiful and perfect. It had real beauty and perfection-- the beauty and perfection that can't be written about or spoken of but the beauty of perfection that arises directly and spontaneously from truth.
What the Buddha was revealing was the flower's truth, the flower's essential nature, what we might call its 'buddha nature', if you like. Words can't reveal it or express it, such truth has to be perceived intuitively. And Mahakashyapa perceived this, and so he smiled. This was Zen's beginning, this was Zen's moment, its epiphany. And whenever we behold that smile and recognise it for ourselves, it becomes our smile too and so the transmission continues even as the world continues to turn.

The Zen Smile!

The stupid person says, 'I know'; the intelligent person comes to know that 'I don't know.' But there is a transcendence of both when only silence prevails. [Osho, Ah This!, page 14]

Truly, gaining a University degree is only the beginning of knowing that you know almost nothing--it is not the end of learning but rather perhaps the start of the journey to wisdom. As a university-trained educator myself, I like to remember this and like to remind my students too. The Osho quote above reminds me of it, and it also reminds me of stories. It reminds me of course of the famous 'over-full teacup' story; and it reminds me too of the story of the origin of Zen, which is one of my very favourite stories:

It is told that Zen began with a smile. The Buddha was sitting with his disciples when a rich man, an important, influential man, asked him to explain Dharma. The Buddha had learned that Dharma-- ultimate truth or meaning-- can't ultimately be explained, for it is beyond words, it is beyond the mind, it simply is; Dharma can only be lived and, in the living, recognised. That is what is meant by satori, it is a breakthrough, it is a moment when the scales fall off the eyes, a moment of recognition; and so the Buddha simply held up a flower, only a flower; otherwise he remained silent. At that very moment, one of the Buddha's disciples, Mahakashyap, recognised; he understood; he smiled. And that smile was the beginning of Zen. It was and still is that smile-- not teaching, not rules, not a specific practice, not even zazen-- that was passed from Patriarch to Patriarch, from Master to disciple, from person to person. Zen is the transmission of a smile. And that's why laughter is always at the heart of Zen.

Being Happy

Happiness is not something we achieve; happiness is our original state of being. We have to let the gloss and dross of our everyday world slip away from us, like heavy snow from the branch of a tree, and simply reclaim it.

If happiness is our original state of being, then why are so many so seldom happy? What is the problem?

The problem is our thoughts. Our thoughts get in the way. When you wake up in the morning, do you ever think, 'Oh, I'll do some thinking now. I'll generate some thoughts.' Of course not! You don't have to tell yourself to think--you wake up already thinking, your thoughts are already there. And you didn't even ask for them! Really, this is the problem. Thinking happens to us the same way as breathing. We don't have to tell ourselves to breathe, we are doing it automatically. In the same way, our thinking is automatic too.

But what are we thinking about? Mostly--99% of the time--we are thinking about something that happened or about something that we have (or want) to do. That is, our thoughts are of the past or of the future. But, really, there is no past or future: there is only now. We live in the now, the right here, right now; there is only ever the right here, right now. We live in the eternal present. We seldom achieve happiness because we are seldom living in the present moment; we are seldom aware; we are seldom awake.

This process begins when we wake up. We start thinking (that is, we are being thought) and we stumble through drinking our coffee, having a shower, cooking and eating breakfast, all the time thinking about something else--what happened yesterday and what we might do today. Consider: how many people actually eat their breakfast? That is, focus on the eating of it: the smell, the taste, where the food comes from, who helped bring it to the table, what it is doing to the body etc? Very few actually.

But, you say, there is pain in this world; how can we avoid pain? No, you're right, there is pain in this world, we can't avoid pain. But we can avoid suffering! There's a reason for pain. It warns us that something is wrong, it makes us aware, and so much more. It's good that we can feel pain. When I was a young boy, there was a boy in my class at school who was always fighting. He loved fighting, and he was usually victorious in fights. The reason he loved fighting was that he suffered from a rare nerve disorder and he couldn't feel pain. One day, he left his hand on a stove cooking ring and didn't realise until he smelled his hand burning. Needless to say, that boy didn't live very long. He died at about the age of ten years. he didn't even live long enough to become a teenager. There are good reasons for pain.

But we don't have to suffer. Pain we feel; but suffering comes because of our thoughts. We dwell on the pain, we multiply things in our minds and we cause ourselves to suffer. Consider: at every funeral there is weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. But for whom? For the dead person? No, of course not! The dead don't need our tears. The dead have passed beyond pain and suffering; often death is a joyous release from suffering. But the mourners suffer. Why? They are suffering for themselves. 'Oh, I won't ever see him again!' 'Oh, what will I do now?' 'Oh, oh, oh.'

No, happiness is our original state of being. To be alive, just to be alive, is such a privilege, such a blessing. To know at any moment that the universe is supporting us, that there is food, clothing, air to breathe, whatever... is such an amazing thing, such a wonder-filled adventure. Life is only ordinary if we have lost our sense of wonder. That is one reason why Jesus said we have to become again as little children. We have to regain our sense of wonder. That is one reason why the Zen masters say we have to recover a beginner's mind. The adult, the business CEO, the professor, their heads are so full of wood that they can never see the trees! We have to let our thoughts of what has happened and what could happen slip away from us like heavy snow from the branch of a tree, reclaim the present moment and enjoy it.

Commentary on Thomas, Logion 60

Gospel of Thomas, logion 60:

They saw a Samaritan carrying a lamb on his way to Judea.
He said to his disciples, "Why does that man carry the lamb around?"
They said to him, "So that he may kill it and eat it."
He said to them, "While it is alive, he will not eat it, but only when he has killed it and it has become a corpse."
They said to him, "He cannot do so otherwise."
He said to them, "You too, look for a place for yourselves within the Repose, lest you become a corpse and be eaten."

The Dhammapada: Watchfulness is the path to immortality and heedlessness is the path to death. The watchful do not die, but the heedless are already dead.

This saying-teaching is focused on being awake, on living in the present moment, what Zen calls mindfulness. For far too many people, life is what happens while they are busy making other plans: "I'll do such-and-such when I get enough money"; "I'll be happy when I meet the man of my dreams"; "I'll get another job as soon as I find new accommodation"; and so on. But the only place we ever live is right here, right now. Dreams of a bright future are only delusions, for there never is any future; there is only right here, right now. The Samaritan is carrying a lamb. It is still a lamb; it is not a corpse, it is not meat--not yet, right here, right now. Perhaps the Samaritan will die, or lose his appetite for meat, or maybe the lamb will escape or someone else will buy it from the Samaritan. The lamb is not yet a corpse. We don't know if the Samaritan killed it or not. We can't foresee the future. We can't foresee the future because there is only right here right now. If we want a different life, then we must seek it in the present moment: we must look for 'a place within the Repose' right here right now, for this is all we have--this moment only, and this moment is ours in its abundance or its poverty: the choice is ours.