Apocryphote of the Day: 2-19-09
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"He who seeks will find me in children from seven years onwards. For there I am found, who am hidden, in the fourteenth aeon."
Hippolytus of Rome, quoting from the Naassene's version of the Gospel of Thomas, Refutation 5.7,20
Commentary: I have no doubt that the Naassenes had their own version of the Gospel of Thomas. Much of their system is based on certain ideologies present in the Gospel of Thomas, such as the encratic lifestyle (=celibacy), and the primal hermaphodite Man as the original image of God and goal of human existence. They used altered versions of certain sayings in the Gospel of Thomas to support their own Gnostic ideologies and rituals. Fascinating how a Syrian encratic gospel of Jesus' sayings becomes adapted by a later Gnostic Christian group in Rome (?). Its use by these sorts of groups may be one of the reasons that it was not a favored gospel in Roman Christianity and did not manage to make the big "4".
Hippolytus of Rome, quoting from the Naassene's version of the Gospel of Thomas, Refutation 5.7,20
Commentary: I have no doubt that the Naassenes had their own version of the Gospel of Thomas. Much of their system is based on certain ideologies present in the Gospel of Thomas, such as the encratic lifestyle (=celibacy), and the primal hermaphodite Man as the original image of God and goal of human existence. They used altered versions of certain sayings in the Gospel of Thomas to support their own Gnostic ideologies and rituals. Fascinating how a Syrian encratic gospel of Jesus' sayings becomes adapted by a later Gnostic Christian group in Rome (?). Its use by these sorts of groups may be one of the reasons that it was not a favored gospel in Roman Christianity and did not manage to make the big "4".