What is the Gospel of Thomas? Is there just one such gospel? What can it teach us about Jesus? Tim Staples joins us.
Cy Kellett:
Hello and welcome to Focus, the Catholic Answers Podcast for living understanding and Defending Your Catholic Faith. One of the most popular conversations we’ve ever had here if the internet is to be believed, and I think in this case it is. One of the most popular conversations we’ve ever had here at Catholic Answers was a conversation with Tim Staples about the Book of Enoch. So we thought, well, let’s go back to Tim and ask him about other non-canonical works and see if we can regenerate that enthusiasm and this time about the Gospel of Thomas. Tim Staples, of course, senior apologists here at Catholic Answers, and the author of Behold Your Mother, a Biblical and Historical Defense of the Marion Doctrines. Tim, thanks for being here. It
Tim Staples:
Is as always wonderful to be with you, my friend.
Tim Staples:
So the Gospel of Thomas, I would tell you a funny story that Darren told me about this before he became a Christian. He was thinking about being Catholic. Is that right? When you were thinking about becoming… He goes into a Christian bookstore and he says, “Do you have any Catholic books?” And the guy says, “Well, we have the Gospel of Thomas.” That was all they had. So I guess he figured you Catholics are into that non-canonical stuff, but first of all, why is it called a gospel but it’s not in the scriptures?
Tim Staples::
Yeah, yeah. Well, the Gospel of Thomas, if you are flying around the internet nowadays, you’ll find all sorts of folks trying to rehabilitate the Gospel of Thomas. They’re saying that evil misogynist Catholic Church-
Cy Kellett:
Suppressed it.
Tim Staples:
… eliminated these wonderful books like the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Judas and the Gospel of Mary. Of course, that’s Mary Magdalene and such and so, Cy, I love reading those. I love reading the folks. In fact, I was just over at the coffee shop and I was reading a number of articles defending the Gospel of Thomas because they’re so lame. They’re so weak in what they present, but it is important for us to be acquainted with these because you’ll hear that often the Gospel of Thomas, why would they eliminate this? Well, first of all, we know the Gospel of Thomas… like I said, you have a few trying to rehabilitate, but most scholars of all sorts acknowledge that it was not written until the mid to late second century, which means it’s a fraud because it claims to be written by Thomas Didymus the Apostle.
Cy Kellett:
The Apostle.
Tim Staples:
And similarly, we may have time to talk a little bit about the infancy narrative Gospel of Thomas, which is sometimes conflated with the Gospel of Thomas. There are actually two different works, but the reason why one’s called the Infancy narrative Gospel of Thomas, and this one’s the Gospel of Thomas, is the former just talks about Jesus infancy. Now, it’s not really infancy. Most of it is set with Jesus at five years old, in the very last part he’s 12. But it’s called the infancy narrative of the Gospel of Thomas. In the Gospel of Thomas itself, which is a different document, but both are claimed to be written by the apostle Thomas. Both of them have been documented to have been written late second century most likely, some dated a little bit later, but it’s probably right around the same time of the gospel of Judas, which St. Irenaeus exposed as a fraud in his day and against Terraces he mentioned, and it was lost to us for a long, long time, and then rediscovered.
The gospel of Judas and of course, the Gospel of Thomas was just rediscovered in 1945 as part of the Nag Hammadi library that was discovered in Egypt and to be separated from the Qumran discoveries in Palestine-
Cy Kellett:
Which were roughly the same time. They’re often conflated in people’s minds.
Tim Staples:
It’s true they are conflated, but just remember that Nag Hammadi we’re talking about stuff all written in Coptic and Greek. There’s no gnostic material in Nag Hammadi, this is all before Christ. No, I mean, I’m sorry.
Cy Kellett:
In the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Tim Staples:
In the Dead Sea Scrolls, I got it the opposite there. In the Dead Sea Scrolls, everything’s written in Hebrew and Aramaic, and there’s no gnostic stuff whatsoever. Very important discoveries. That’s for another time. But the Nag Hammadi 1945 discoveries were in Egypt, and that’s all in Coptic and in Greek. And that is gnostic stuff and really important discoveries, including the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Philip.
Cy Kellett:
For historians and for an understanding of the times. These are really important documents.
Tim Staples:
Oh my gosh, yeah. And I encourage folks to read them. I’ve read them numerous times. Gospel of Thomas, I just mentioned to you before we came on, I just reread it again. I’ve read it many times, but it’s only, what is it, I want to say 19 chapters total. You can read it in one sitting and the infancy narrative. No, the infancy narrative is 19 chapters. The Gospel of Thomas is 114 little sections, but some of these sections are one sentence, some are paragraphs, and they’re basically the sayings of Jesus. But you also have Peter and the apostles piping in and whatnot. So very important. And tell you what, it’s also important from an apologist standpoint because for those today we talk about trying to rehabilitate the Gospel of Thomas, where there are a lot of folks trying to rehabilitate a dead argument that Jesus never existed, right?
Cy Kellett:
Oh, right.
Tim Staples:
In the popular culture, which is a ridiculous argument to make, but this is some of the stuff you can pull out of your arsenal and say, “Look, even the gnostics who were basically…” Remember gnostics was a sort of Christian heresy because they were Christians, the first gnostics, you and I have talked about Cerinthus.
Cy Kellett:
Cerinthus, yeah.
Tim Staples:
Our friend Cerinthus and Simon, the magician as he’s called there in Acts chapter eight. These are a couple of the fathers of gnosticism, these were Christians who fell away but then created a monstrosity that was no longer Christian at all. It completely distorted and annihilated true Christianity. And so gnosticism, it has to be understood was Christians who had fallen. And you really get that when you read the Gospel of Thomas. One of the many ways you can tell that the Gospel of Thomas is not some, as I read one fellow try to say today, “It was actually written in 60 AD. Of course, the Catholics and the Christians don’t want you to know this. I have this secret knowledge.”
Well, that’s ridiculous because when you read it, and I’ll give you some examples in a moment here, you can see how at times the author takes sayings of Jesus. Sometimes he gets them right. Sometimes you have little sayings that come right from the Gospel of John or one of the gospels and, “Hey, you got that one right?” But then sometimes they completely butcher it and miss the whole point of what Jesus was actually saying. So it’s an obvious taking from the gospels and then trying to distort them or twist them, or at times it appears it’s just from incompetence. They just got it dead wrong.
Cy Kellett:
Well, would it be something like if you read Deepak Chopra now, he’ll quote from the gospels and he gets the quote right, but the whole meaning that he’s construing around whatever quote he’s taking from the gospels is not a Christian meaning.
Tim Staples:
Exactly. Exactly. And that’s really important. You can discover the fraud by just reading the Gospel of Thomas and seeing how, “Oh, they obviously, the authors or author obviously had the gospel and could read it, but oh my gosh, do they distort it at times?” And I should point this out, that among those who are trying to rehabilitate Thomas, they’ll say, “It wasn’t gnostic at all.” If you read the Gospel of Thomas, it’s not as overtly gnostic as say the Gospel of Judas or even the Gospel of Mary, Philip. They’re very, very gnostic-
Cy Kellett:
Meaning the hatred of the body and all that gnostic stuff.
Tim Staples:
Yeah, the radical dualism that… Man, you read the gospel of Judas and that we had a pre-existence existence among the Aons, the levels of being, although in the gospel of Judas, they’re called angelic levels. It’s basically the Aons different levels and then Adam was an angel or one from the various levels of Aons who became incarnate, and Jesus was just another of these. And Jesus was exalted through his knowledge and his fullness of knowledge of the gnosis. And he’s basically a guru who wants to lead you to discover that you too can be Jesus or you too, not so much be Jesus, but understand the all as Jesus understands. So you do have a much more overt sort of reference to this, the chaos before the incarnation, if you will, of Adam and before the incarnation of Jesus that is these levels of Aons and whatnot.
It’s really overt. But in the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Thomas is much more about the enlightened being, enlightened coming to understand the secret. And this is one of the quick giveaways that we’re talking about gnostic authors, both the infancy Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Thomas begins with these are the secret sayings of Jesus and how Thomas was enlightened. And in fact, later on in the Gospel of Thomas, there’s a scene where Jesus is talking with the apostles and he asks them a question. Basically, “Who do you say the son of man is?” And then Peter responds, and it’s none of this thou were at the Christ son of living God, they all get it wrong. You’re a really cool philosopher. You’re this or that. But then he takes Thomas aside and reveals to Thomas the secret knowledge.
Now, I was reading today one of the defenders of the Gospel of Thomas says, “Well, this is nothing new because if you go to Mark chapter four, Jesus says unto you, it is given to know the secrets of the kingdom, and those out are in the dark. And I’m going to reveal this to you.” It’s talking about the parable of the sower. But the difference is Jesus reveals the secret of the kingdom to all 12 apostles and commissions them to go out and tell everybody about it. He secretly gives the secret to Thomas, but don’t tell the other apostles, right? It’s Thomas and James that are the two leaders in the Gospel of Thomas, and the rest of them are numb heads, right? And so it says to Thomas, he gives him the secrets of the kingdom, and then the other apostles ask him, “Well, what did Jesus say?” And Thomas says, “If I were to tell you, you would pick up rocks and stone me, and then the rocks would issue fire and kill you all. So I can’t tell you.”
So there’s a sign we’re talking about gnostics here, and really the Gospel of Thomas is all about that. It’s all about the revelation of the all. You see that language of the all because Jesus himself in the Gospel of Thomas says, “I am the all.” Right, but what’s interesting, another telltale sign is even though that’s by the way in the Gospel of Thomas, section 77 where Jesus says, “I am the all.” But then in section two, Jesus says, “Let him who seeks continue seeking until he finds, when he finds he will become troubled. When he becomes troubled, he will be astonished and he will rule over the all.”
So notice, “Yeah, I am the all, but guess what? If you listen to my words, you will rule over the all.” I don’t even know what that means. You’re going to rule over Jesus because he’s the all but you’re going to rule… The idea is, and you have to remember when you read all the gospel, the gnostic writings, gospels and so forth, it’s very confused. It contradicts itself all over the place. We read the beauty of the gospels and we see their beautiful and airtight. You’re not going to get that with the gnostic gospels. But there you have some insight into how we know, yes, this is gnostic stuff. And one other example I should point out of the obvious gnosticism. Let’s see. It’s right there near the end.
Yeah, I love this. Jesus said, “Blessed is he who came into being before he came into being if you become my disciples and listen to my words.” Right, there’s an example, that’s a logical contradiction you came into being before you came into being. But of course it’s referring to the gnostic idea of a pre-existent soul and the all. But at the same time it says even Jesus came into being at some point way back in the Aons of time, if you will. And so you have all these contradictions like that, and maybe we’ll look at some more later.
Cy Kellett:
It almost sounds like a kind of imitation of actual kind of spiritual language, that they’re just imitating the form without it actually conveying something meaning.
Tim Staples:
Yes. Yes, absolutely. Oh, you get a lot of that. In fact, I’ve scribbled down here a number of these sayings where some of them are absolutely correct. If a blind man leads a blind man, they will both fall into the pit. That’s section 34, which absolutely.
Cy Kellett:
But it’s an interesting one to pick because it’s about being able to see, and it has that gnostic… If you’re going to take a saying of Jesus, that one is closer to your gnosticism than many others, so pick that one.
Tim Staples:
Sure, sure. But here’s the one I was looking for a clear example of gnostic dualism. In section 112, “Jesus said, ‘Woe to the flesh that depends upon the soul and woe to the soul that depends upon the flesh.'” So it would be one thing to say woe to the soul who depends upon the flesh in the sense of giving into the inclinations of the flesh. But that’s not what’s being said here because it says, “Woe to the flesh that depends upon the soul.” Well, wait a minute, we’re supposed to be a people that depend upon, if you will, the spirit. But here it’s, “Woe to the flesh that depends upon the soul, woe to the soul that depends upon the flesh.” Which is-
Cy Kellett:
These two things should not be in contact with one another.
Tim Staples:
That’s right. And in fact, you get allusions to the fact that everything, this whole world is an illusion, and ultimately in order to become one with the all, you have to realize that. And that comes through the enlightenment of the mind with the secret knowledge. And that’s something that-
Cy Kellett:
Is that the theme of the whole thing then basically is that kind of getting this knowledge so that you can escape from this trap and go back to the all.
Tim Staples:
It really is, that’s the underlying… Even though you do have that radical sort of dualistic sense here, that really isn’t emphasized as much as that, yes, you need this secret knowledge. For those who want to rehabilitate the Gospel of Thomas, you only have to give a superficial reading of this to see that it’s crazy. Not only does it deny the truth about who Jesus Christ is, who we are and the true spiritual life, and it misses the boat on just about everything. But it’s crazy in as much as you’ll have in one part, Jesus condemns fasting and even praying. If you fast, all sorts of sins will arise in your soul. And then in another place, if you don’t fast, you will never see the kingdom. There are things that are just such blatant contradictions because no doubt when he says you shouldn’t fast, he’s probably talking about be careful because in fasting you’re emphasizing that which is nonsensical, the flesh, which has no import whatsoever. Well, that’s in one section, but then in another section it’s, you need to fast in order to be able to see the kingdom. It’s those-
Cy Kellett:
That dualism means that you’re going to get opposite advice because you’re actually dealing with two things that are opposite of one another.
Tim Staples:
Yeah, absolutely. And yeah, you see that I can talk about other gospels like the gospel of Judas, where you see that radical sort of dualism with Judas himself. Who remember the gospel of Judas, which by the way came out about the same time as the Gospel of Thomas, as I mentioned before. But you see that there too, how that Jesus takes Judas aside, and this is just three days before Judas would deny him. And that’s what the gospel of Judas is the revelation, the secret knowledge Jesus gave to Judas before he turned him over. But ultimately, Judas is going to be fine. In the end, even though he did a bad thing and turning Jesus over, ultimately he’s saved as well because you really have that eastern idea of yin and yang.
Cy Kellett:
Oh, right and so-
Tim Staples:
The evil penetrates the good, the good penetrates the evil. And so there’s really no essential distinction between them. That’s a very eastern understanding that creeps into the gnosticism.
Cy Kellett:
Well, let me ask you about that then, because Thomas is reputed to have gone to India and the Gospel of Thomas, you said, is in Nag Hammadi, was discovered in the modern times in Nag Hammadi, so that’s in Egypt. Egypt, right. Where was it written? Does anybody know where it comes from?
Tim Staples:
Yeah, no, there are different theories, but all we know is yes, it’s written in Coptic and you have translations in Greek as well, and they were discovered. So it wasn’t just one translation of this. So the original version, don’t really know for sure. It was most likely, like we said, written in the mid-second century, but exactly who wrote it is a mystery,
Cy Kellett:
But the purpose of the writing is to propose this alternative to Christianity that had grown up from people who left Christianity.
Tim Staples:
Absolutely. And they were attempting, and you get this clearly from St. Irenaeus when he writes what was just the blockbuster sort of expose agnosticism in about the year 177 ad. In fact, at one point, you and I have talked about this before, you see how if you back up what, 70 years roughly to Ignatius of Antioch, because he writes against these same gnostics. In an earlier version in his, I think it’s his letter to the Serian where he talks about how they abstain from prayer. Is that in section eight, as I recall. They abstained from prayer and from the Eucharist because they deny the Eucharist is the flesh of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the same flesh which suffered and died for our salvation. So you notice then that these gnostics had just broken with the church, but they were still in the church. They were coming to mass as Ignatius is saying, but they were refusing to receive the Eucharist, and so they were starting to teach and cause problems. We don’t have that today, do we Cy?
Cy Kellett:
We have no problems like that.
Tim Staples:
No problems. They were in the church and leading people astray. But by the time of St. Irenaeus, 70 years later, they had split and split and split, and now they had churches or they were doing parallel liturgies. And you see that clearly with St. Irenaeus because he says, “You all contradict yourself because you say you don’t believe Jesus had flesh.” He’s talking about the gnostic Docetis who didn’t believe Jesus had flesh at all. And yet you use the words, “This is my body, this is the chalice in my blood.” And he says, “Either give up your heresy or stop saying the words, you people are making no sense.” So there is no doubt that by the time the Gospel of Thomas has written, which is probably just before Irenaeus wrote that they were doing apologetics trying to show they’re the real deal.
These Christians, these Catholics, they’ve got the whole thing wrong. And man, did they come on an onslaught because as you know, Cy, there was far more gnostic writing in the first, what, 300 years of the Christian era than there was Christian. They were prolific, just writing like crazy, and they were very successful.
Cy Kellett:
Which gives us the against heresies and those kinds of things, the necessity for them.
Tim Staples:
Exactly.
Cy Kellett:
Because the gnostics were so successful. So make the distinction then between this what we’ve just discussed, does the Gospel of Thomas and the infancy narrative of Thomas, is that also a gnostic writing?
Tim Staples:
Yes. And it too was probably written a little bit later than the Gospel of Thomas, but not by much. And it’s a fascinating read. As I said, it’s only 19 chapters long. You can read it in a sitting. I’ve read it numerous times. It is absolutely fascinating. I’m holding it in my hand here. And what it purports is that Jesus, and again, the overwhelming majority of it is Jesus at five. And at the very end you have a little thing with him in the temple at 12 years old. But the idea here is it’s like gnostics are filling in the holes between the finding in the temple. And Jesus beginning his ministry in John chapter two at the Wedding Feast of Cana, and they’re showing how that Jesus was a wonder worker, a miracle worker from the time he was five years old and it lists all these miracles.
You know the famous in chapter two where Jesus makes 12 sparrows out of clay, but first he makes this trench of water from the mud and then miraculously makes the water absolutely clear. Little hint of Moses, perhaps, I don’t know. He’s separating the mud from the water though, so that it’s nice and crystal clear. And then he forms 12 doves out of the clay. And one of his friends gets mad. And of course Joseph gets mad when he’s told, what are you doing making these sparrows out of clay? And of course, Jesus then claps his hands, it says, “Ordering the birds with a shout in front of all and said, ‘Go take flight, like living beings.’ And the sparrows taking flight flew away squawking.” And so everybody including a Pharisee who saw this and complained to Joseph, was amazed and reported this to all his friends.
And so this becomes a theme here that then Jesus will curse… In fact, this one kid, Jesus is out playing-
Cy Kellett:
Don’t mess with Jesus.
Tim Staples:
Oh yeah, he’s five years old and the high priest’s son who is Anis at the time, Anis’ son just happened to run into Jesus. He was running and ran into Jesus. Jesus got mad and killed him just at his word. It says, “And immediately the child withered away.” And he would kill a few other careless children who did some things that he didn’t like, he would kill them. Now, of course, I kid you not, Cy, there’s a section in chapter eight a while later that talks about how Jesus… There it is, the child, Jesus laughed and said, “Now may the barren bear fruit.” Oh gosh, there’s so much to this. It’s so much fun. But Jesus ends up having an encounter with three different teachers. One is Zacchaeus, and then there was two other teachers. And Zacchaeus, the first teacher, was a good and humble man because he was going to teach Jesus. And he found out, oh my gosh, Jesus, you need to teach me because he’s so brilliant and he starts doing a lengthy discourse on the Greek language to this teacher And he’s a five-year-old, right?
So the guy’s like, “Okay, I am humbled here.” Right? Well, there were two other teachers that tried to teach him that weren’t quite so humble, and he ends up killing them. But because of the goodness of the one teacher in chapter eight, yeah, Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus, who was the first teacher who was humble, he kind of made reparation for those others that Jesus had killed. Jesus laughed and this is chapter eight. “Now, may the barren bear fruit, the blind see and the foolish and hard find understanding that I’m here from above so that I may deliver those below and call them up. And immediately all who had fallen under his curse were saved, but no one dared to provoke him from then on.”
Cy Kellett:
He’s like that kid in the twilight zone. You know the one that puts you in the cornfield.
Tim Staples:
Or how about the kid in Star Trek? Remember that ends up being from a superior race and a child where he kills whoever makes him angry. It’s kind of what’s going on here. But see, even after that, and by the way, to say that he delivered everyone here in chapter eight is kind of weak. But even if that’s true, he ends up killing other people. He raises more from the dead. But the whole point is that with each miracle, and as you read through, and some of them are really comical, you discover that this is known by everyone because the Pharisee goes and tells people and people are blown away. But what’s the problem with that Cy Kellett, is this is absolutely contrary to the historical facts of the gospel. Because when Jesus performed the miracle, for example at Cana, John says his first miracle, right?
This is his first miracle. Then he says his second miracle and so forth, and you have seven miracles there in John’s gospel. But no, John don’t you know, he’s been performing miracles all over the place.
Cy Kellett:
Since he was five, yeah.
Tim Staples:
And think about this, in John chapter six, the famous, when he feeds the 5,000 and sends the apostles out on the sea, he goes up on the mountain and so forth, and then that leads into the eucharistic discourse. Remember what the people say when Jesus makes these radical statements like in the last days, “I will raise those who are faithful to me. I will raise…” And he makes all these claims that only God can make. What does the crowd say? And in fact, the claim of claims, “I am the bread come down from heaven, I have come down from heaven.” And what do the multitudes say there in John six? “Who is this guy? We know him.”
Cy Kellett:
Yeah, right. “We know his dad. We know his know where he lives.”
Tim Staples:
“We know his dad, we know his cousins. Who is he to say…” The whole point is, “We’ve never seen this guy do anything like this before, I went to Nazareth Elementary school with him.” So the point is the infancy narrative Gospel of Thomas is laughable. And so the reason why the church rejected it is of course, not only is it a fraud because it’s not written by Thomas. It contradicts the gospels. It contradicts the truth that we have in the gospel and part of the Gospel of Thomas steals from those very gospels. So why in the world would the church accept something that is this outlandish and obviously false?
Cy Kellett:
But I do think that the people who complain about the church’s lack of acceptance of this gospel, they don’t actually believe the other gospels anyways.
Tim Staples:
Correct. Good point.
Cy Kellett:
So they don’t see it as a matter of truth, they see it as a matter of power. That, “Well, you rejected this because you had the power to reject it, but it has messages that are good.” And among those messages, and this is one I want to ask you about, and the Gospel of Thomas. Look, this is a bunch. This is a male centered church that hates women, and so it’s suppressing the Gospel of Thomas because the church is misogynist.
Tim Staples:
Oh my gosh. Do you read that a lot online, right? And of course when it comes to the gospel of Mary, because you have in the gospel of Mary that Mary Magdalene is kind of the first apostle. And by the way, we call Mary-
Cy Kellett:
The apostle to the apostles.
Tim Staples:
The apostle to the apostles, that for us as Catholic Christians, that’s nothing new.
Cy Kellett:
No problem.
Tim Staples:
There’s nothing secret about that. Yeah, she was chosen by Jesus to bring the good news of the resurrection to the apostles. But the point is, to say the gnostic works are these liberators of women, and the church is the evil oppressor of women is really farcical.
Cy Kellett:
Yes.
Tim Staples:
Now, I’m just going to read you section 114, this is the last section of the Gospel of Thomas, and then I want you to give me an honest evaluation. Do you believe that this is pro-woman? All right, here it is. From the Gospel of Thomas folks, Simon Peter said to him, “Let Mary leave us for women are not worthy of life.” Jesus said, “I myself shall lead her in order to make her male so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males.”
Cy Kellett:
Holy smokes.
Tim Staples:
“For every woman who will make herself male will enter the kingdom of heaven.”
Cy Kellett:
So he doesn’t reject Peter’s objection. He goes, “Good point Peter. Women are lifeless automatons, but I’m going to make her male.”
Tim Staples:
That’s right.
Cy Kellett:
That is not affirmation of womanhood.
Tim Staples:
Maybe we should keep this secret because the transgender people are going to get ahold of us.
Cy Kellett:
Oh, this is a good gospel.
Tim Staples:
No, but I think though this is an example of what happens out in the netherworld, what do we call it? Digital land or whatever you call it out there is people latch on and “Oh, this is cool. Yeah, the church is misogynist and all this.” And they don’t realize that no gnostics were extremely misogynist. To a degree, you and I-
Cy Kellett:
It’s utterly foreign to the church.
Tim Staples:
Utterly.
Cy Kellett:
Completely.
Tim Staples:
Yeah, absolutely foreign to the church and the attacks against the church are rooted in things that are simply false. The fact that we make distinctions between male and female, somehow that becomes misogynist, really? Who is it that are the misogynists? Look at our own culture. Not only do we have this obvious misogynism from the Gospel of Thomas, but think about it in our own culture. We’re the ones that are misogynists. And yet today you have these progressives arguing that biological men should be able to compete and beat the tar out of women in boxing rings. I just saw a guy the other day on the internet saying, “If Mike… Did I send that to you?
Cy Kellett:
No, no, but I know what you’re talking about.
Tim Staples:
Yeah. This fellow was asked the question by a congressman said, “If Mike Tyson became transgender, would you say it would be okay for Mike Tyson to fight women in a boxing ring?” And the guy goes, “Well, yes, if he’s truly transgender.” Oh my gosh, what are you talking about?
Cy Kellett:
Yeah, men beating up women is now being promoted as some kind of liberal-
Tim Staples:
And you’re a misogynist if you challenge it. Well, that’s kind of what is going on here when you have folks trying to say gnosticism, they were the real liberators of women. It’s absolutely false.
Cy Kellett:
So, okay, so just to be clear then, the Gospel of Thomas and the infancy narrative of Thomas, two different things, both having a general gnostic tendency.
Tim Staples:
Correct.
Cy Kellett:
Both written much later than the actual gospels as a kind of replacement teaching for Christianity.
Tim Staples:
Yes. They were rebels. You can think of it this way. Like Cerinthus, going back even further here than the Gospel of Thomas, these were rebels. And so they had to do things like… And you’ll see this in the Gospel of Thomas when it comes to James. James is the real leader of the apostles. This will come out because the apostles at one point actually ask Jesus, “After you die, who will be our leader?” And Jesus says, “James.” Because in fact, in gnostic fashion, they say, “James, because he is the one for whom the entirety of the heavens and the earth were created for.”
Cy Kellett:
Oh really, James?
Tim Staples:
It was created for James. I think they’re making their point, but why would they do that? That’s not a disproof of the Petrine office. It’s actually a proof of it because the Petrine office was so pervasive throughout the world that if you’re going-
Cy Kellett:
Right, you got to have an alternative.
Tim Staples:
… if you’re going to have a rebellion, you got to have Jesus saying something like that. And it’s so hyperbolic to the point of it’s quite laughable. You follow James because he’s the one for whom the heavens and the earth were created.
Cy Kellett:
Oh, yeah. Right. That’s so over the top that in an attempt to undermine, like you said, the Petrine office.
Tim Staples:
Yes, exactly.
Cy Kellett:
So why was this lost? Why did we lose it? Did the community die out? Did it fade away? What happened with this gnostic community?
Tim Staples:
Yeah. Well, the Nag Hammadi library that was rediscovered in 1945 was lost just like so many others. There wasn’t a period you can point to, although the destruction of the Alexandria Library certainly would be part of it, but I’m not sure if you can say that they were all destroyed in 4 76. I’m not sure about that. Exactly why or did it disappear in 476? But the bottom line is it did in fact disappear. And no doubt the Christian evangelization that happened, no doubt had a dramatic effect. Because the success of gnosticism in the early centuries would definitely wane. Now, it would continue. It would rear its ugly head again and again with the Albigensians in France. That’s why we have the Dominicans, the mannequins of St. Augustine that in enticed St. Augustine for a while, it was always here, but they never had the success that they had in the early centuries.
It would begin to wane because of the onslaught of the church. Now, whether it was that that had the effect on these Gnostic writings kind of disappearing, was it the destruction of the Alexandrian library in 476? I would say it would be all of the above. But what I find fascinating, Cy, is that today with the rediscovery in 1945 of Nag Hammadi, you have a rebirth of all these old arguments Once again.
Cy Kellett:
Yes, that’s right.
Tim Staples:
The arguments the Gnostics we’re making in the first, second, third centuries are back. And so we as apologists here at Catholic Answers, we need to get out and start reading the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Judas, the Gospel of Philip-
Cy Kellett:
And explain these things.
Tim Staples:
… at all.
Cy Kellett:
Yeah, right. It’s really something that the incarnation of God in Christ is really an offense to some people. And so this religious movement again and again, that we’ll say, “Well, the incarnation is an illusion or is something that the church taught, but it didn’t really happen.” That impulse is never going to go away because for some reason that just won’t fit with a certain kind of spirituality that just wants the spirit, doesn’t want the body.
Tim Staples:
Amen. And the fact is, brother, we have history on our side. The Christian apologetic, my friend is airtight. And so whatever these errors are, whether it’s the revitalization of gnosticism or whatever the ism is, the good news is that we have the one holy Catholic and apostolic fate, faith that is unassailable, my friends. We have reasons for our faith and that’s why we exist at Catholic Answers. God bless you, Cy.
Cy Kellett:
Thank you. You know what I’m really looking forward to, I hope that I will make it to heaven and I will meet Mary Magdalene and she’ll still be a woman and I’ll be delighted to meet a woman in heaven because that’s the will of God.
Tim Staples:
She didn’t get turned into a man-
Cy Kellett:
She didn’t get turned into a man.
Cy Kellett:
… by Jesus.
Cy Kellett:
No, thanks, Tim.
Tim Staples:
God bless.
Cy Kellett:
Thanks everybody. We appreciate you listening to Catholic Answers Focus. If you ever want to get in touch with us, send us an email focus@catholic.com. If you are willing to support this apostolate, you can do so by going to givecatholic.com and give in any amount there. Well, wherever you’re listening, they’ll have a little thing where you can give us five stars and maybe write a little review. If you could do those two things, five stars and a nice review that does help to grow the podcast, I’m Cy Kellett, your host. We’ll see you next time. God willing, right here on Catholic Answers Focus.