Gospel of Thomas, 50

All during the writing of The Star of Bethlehem manuscript in 1996, I knew I was getting somewhere, but couldn’t quite grasp where that somewhere was. Now, 24 years later, I’m returning to one of the pivotal entries which spurred my thinking down some very specific Gnostic lanes.

Here’s Elaine Pagels’ translation of Logion 50 from the Gospel of Thomas:

Jesus said, “If they say to you, ‘Where have you come from?’ say to them, ‘We have come from the light, from the place where the light came into being by itself, established [itself], and appeared in their image.’ If they say to you, ‘Who are you?’ say, ‘We are its children, and we are the chosen of the living Father.’ If they ask you, ‘What is the sign of your Father in you?’ say to them, ‘It is movement and rest.’“

Over the years, I’ve pondered the last part, but I haven’t disregarded the importance of the first two parts, either. According to some scholars, these are the questions that the guardians (Angels) of the inner realms (Heaven) will ask when one is trying to go there. It would seem that Jesus is giving his disciples the ‘passwords’ ahead of time.

But is that logical? Why would he allow them to cheat?

Instead, I think it is a question and answer sequence for Initiation into the Mystery Schools. Then, the initiate would have had to learn his lines well, and totally believe what he was saying, or the whole opportunity would collapse and potentially kill him.

Proof of what I am saying can be found in The Refiner’s Fire.

Movement and Rest

So often, lately, I’ve been looking at spiritual truths as interpreted with modern understanding: binary code. The number 10 in binary code is equal to our number 2.

Are you getting the picture?

The terms Movement (1) and Rest (0) give us a 10 (as in, “Be ye therefore perfect as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” Matthew 5:48, part of the Sermon on the Mount). But it also implies that we have to make the two into one.

Logion 22

Jesus saw some babies nursing. He said to the disciples, “These nursing babies are like those who enter the Kingdom.”

They said to him, “Then shall we enter the Kingdom as babies?”

Jesus said to them, “When you make the two into one, and when you make the inner like the outer and the outer like the inner, and the upper like the lower, and when you make male and female into a single one, so that the male will not be male nor the female be female, when you make eyes in place of any eye, a hand in place of a hand, a foot in place of a foot, an image in place of an image, then you will enter [the Kingdom].”