The Gospel of Thomas, a Q-esque off shoot, is not one of the core-four canonical Gospels of the Bible, but nevertheless provides an extensive insight into early Christian communities as well as the life of Jesus as the other four main Gospels do. White explains Thomas’s authorship to be “explicitly attributed” to Didymus Judas Thomas (360). This full name translates into “twin”, or someone intrinsically connected to the Jesus figure. Thomas approaches Jesus’s identity in a spiritualized, heavenly, and Wisdom/Sophia-like way; different from the human or divine man formed aretologies of the first three synoptic gospels. Although inherently counteracting each other’s theologies, Thomas is most similar to the Gospel of John which helps readers to draw insights about the more spiritual and abstract being that is Jesus.
Thomas’s collections of the sayings of Jesus and dialogue with his disciples is complex and wordy at first read, but is formed like so to create an image of Jesus as a heavenly figure understood only at a level above that of humanity. In the very first verse of Thomas, Jesus says, “Whoever discovers the interpretation of these sayings will not taste death” (Thomas 1). Thomas sets up his gospel by having Jesus inform his followers that the words of Jesus have the key to eternal life. What Jesus says is truth, and ultimately the law of the kingdom. Understanding what Jesus says, and emulating his words and ways by how one lives their life is ultimately the key into the kingdom of heaven. In verses 13 and 17, Jesus is like a divine prophet, who has come to usher in a new age, a new time. In this new era, the old and those who have passed away are not regarded. Jesus is a figure that puts forth an optimism to looking ahead and living life on earth following the instructions of the heavenly kingdom, which Jesus as messenger delivers. Jesus is a prophet and a messenger, here and now. He often corrects his disciples and emphasizes the point that he is omnipresent. Thomas chooses to make Jesus an approachable messenger when he integrates Jesus as gentle and someone in whom one can take rest (Thomas 90), in addition to Jesus’s divinity. Jesus’s suffering and death is not mentioned in Thomas, instead, Thomas chooses to focus on the relationship that Jesus has into the eternal life and how in which to make life on earth one full of discipleship and love that most closely mirrors that of the divine and heavenly kingdom which Jesus portrays as the ultimate goal and idea of perfection.
From the start of the Gospel of Thomas, Thomas seeks to portray that the kingdom of heaven as a part of each of Jesus’s followers intrinsically and in the faith that they spread to new followers; “the kingdom is within you and it is outside you” (3). The physical conditions of humanity is not what Jesus and the kingdom of heaven is concerned about according to Thomas. The human condition, as well as the earthly world is drunk and flawed within these readings; nursing babies are within means of reaching the kingdom of heaven, but once questions regarding physicality and actions, come up, Jesus talks about the flaws of humanity for focusing and placing laws on the human condition. Jesus cares much more for the souls of humanity. Midway through Thomas’s gospel, the disciples ask Jesus, “‘is circumcision useful or not?'”, in which Jesus wittily responds, “‘If it were useful, their father would produce children already circumcised from their mother. Rather, the true circumcision in spirit has become profitable in every respect'” (53). Time and time again, Jesus disregards and takes the focus away from human and worldly things; to Thomas’s character of Jesus, the spirit and understanding of an individual is what makes him most in the image of Christ and the kingdom of heaven, not what he eats or wears or does to his body. Entrance to the kingdom of heaven according to Christ depends on an understanding of one’s own spirit and relationship with Jesus. The earthly world and all its worries about the physical body, riches, etc. is intrinsically flawed according to Thomas, and the only way to align oneself with Christ is a focus on the spirit and the identity of Christ.
Thomas almost presents a messianic secret in alignment with his allusions to insiders. The disciples know more than the “average Joe” due to their relationship with Christ and having heard (“drunk” (13)) his words directly from him. Even more so, what Thomas is revealed is secret and not able to be shared. Jesus reveals to his closest followers the keys and insights to achieve a place in the kingdom of heaven and to be reunited with Jesus one day, the ultimate gift from Christ.
Thomas’s form of Christianity seems to be that like aestheticism according to White. This form of Christianity appeals to the intrinsically spiritual individual, or someone/a community who lacks physical possessions. Thomas and his representation of Jesus extend the divine kingdom to anyone who can grasp the words of Christ. Body or identity does not matter to this version of Jesus, solely the soul and spiritual relationship between Jesus, God the Father, and each earthly individual. A unique gospel surely, but not one without value and insight on a different interpretation of Christ himself.