One strong connection between the Gospel of Thomas and Greek philosophy is dualism. Greek thinkers divided the world into polar opposites: good/bad, spiritual/physical, light/dark. This dualism can be seen in the Gospel of Thomas when Jesus says that “On the day when you were one, you became two. But now that you are two, what will you do?” (11). Salvation, in the Gospel of Thomas, can be seen as the process of confronting the essential dualism inherent in human existence. The Gospel of Thomas tells us that “If two make peace between themselves in the same house they shall say to the mountain, ‘Move away,’ and it will move” (48). The “two” in this illustration are our dual natures as human beings: our physical selves and our spiritual selves.

The process of those two selves “becoming one” is a process of denial. The Gospel of Thomas says that “If you do not fast (in respect to) the world, you will not find the Kingdom” (27). Turning away from the physical opens the self to the spiritual. Sayings 63 and 64 particularly illustrate the dangers of focusing on one’s physical existence. They are both similar to passages recorded in the gospels. Saying 63 tells the story of a man who spent his time and energy amassing wealth, only to die suddenly. Saying 64 is a shortened version of the Parable of the Great Banquet that is recorded in Matthew 22 and Luke 14, in which a man holds a feast and invites the wealthy and powerful, only for his invitees to give excuses as to why they cannot attend. The man then sends his servant out to the streets to invite anybody he can find to enjoy the feast. The excuses the man’s original guests give are all rooted in the physical world: lending and repaying money, buying property, and celebrating a marriage. In the Gospel of Thomas, the physical world is presented as a barrier and a distraction.

If the physical world is the barrier to “becoming one”, by what means is the physical world overcome? Jesus says in the Gospel of Thomas that “He who drinks from my mouth will be as I am, and I will be he and the things that are hidden will be revealed to him” (108). If Jesus is the source of spiritual knowledge, and the spiritual self is to be raised above the physical self, it is the knowledge that Jesus brings that leads us out of our physical selves into spiritual perfection. In Thomas, Jesus says that “the images are manifest to a person, and the light in them is hidden in the image of the light of the Father. He will reveal himself, and his image will be hidden by his light” (83). The spiritual truth given by God through Jesus illuminates and eliminates the physical self in the same way that a figure can be reduced to blurry shadows by a bank of strong lights. The light is what we are meant to see, not the image.

The danger Thomas Christianity presented to the proto-orthodox church had a great deal to do with the means of salvation both theologies promised. The salvation promised by Thomas Christianity was rooted in gaining knowledge and thereby overcoming the physical world, while the salvation promised by the proto-orthodox church was rooted in delivering the believer from their sins by the atoning sacrifice of Christ. Forgiveness for one’s sins was and is a powerful selling point of the Christian faith. A theology that denied that forgiveness could exist when sin was just a product of a physical world that had no meaning in the first place threatened the foundations of what it meant to be a Christian in the proto-orthodox worldview. Thomas Christianity reflects the canonical gospels when it claims that “Many are standing at the door, but the solitary will enter the Bridal Chamber” (75), but proto-orthodox Christianity seems to take a more populist position. While the gospels claim that orthodox Christianity is the small gate and the narrow road (Matthew 7:14), but offers the redemption of Christ to all who are willing to claim it. Thomas Christianity remains rather more exclusive to those who are willing to seek the truth of their dual existence, and threatens the appeal of proto-orthodox Christianity by doing so.