Gospel of Saint Thomas and Fear

Question: 

The Gospel of St Thomas was not rejected by the Church somehow because of the quote that you give: The Kingdom of God is within you, and all around you etc.

That work was the product of Gnostics and was created by them to promote their particular philosophical perspective which, in and of itself, was aimed against Christ as God Incarnate for the salvation of humankind and His Teachings as communicated through the Apostles and His Church.

Numerous groups such as these created "gospels" "acts" and "apostolic letters." They used such terminology from the Church's own by which She named the books of the Bible and other orthodox writings. They did this to try and give their musings some sort of authority from the Church itself.

Now, if the Gnostics were convinced of the authority of their own perspective, why did they feel they needed to provide a false cloak of authority around their writings to try and get Christians to read them?

This was chicanery, pure and simple.

The only gospel that St Thomas the Apostle was ever associated with was that which he heard directly from Christ Himself. St Thomas took the written Gospel of St Mathew with him to India where extant copies, in Hebrew, not Greek, have been found recently.

Thomas was the doubting disciple who called Christ, "My Lord and My God" in the New Testament. A Gnostic would never call Christ that and so their "gospel" is nothing more than a fraud posing as a legitimate Christian work (which it certainly is not).

Another literary "trick" Gnostics and others used to practice was to include legitimate sayings of Christ in with their philosophic and mental musings in written form. That was another method by which they cloaked their imaginings about Christ with an aura of authority.

The quote you cite is basically what is already found in the New Testament Canon and the Tradition of the Church founded by Jesus. There is doubtless a twist to the words to try and make it seem that the Church is an external edifice that is somehow "hiding" the "real truth" about Christ.

And, the Gnostics seem to be saying, if you REALLY wanted to know the truth about Christ, then you need to come and join our group . . . That is sheer nonsense, but it does point to the fact that the authority of the Church was remarkably strong even in those early days of Christianity. 

That is why the Gnostics and others felt the need to manipulate words and titles to try and cloak their views with that authority. It also implies that, as a sect, the Gnostics were shunned by Christians and the only way they could get an "inside track" with Christians was to represent their teachings in dishonest ways.

Modern day groups do similar things with the Bible itself. For example, the "New World Translation" of the Jehovah's Witnesses begins the Gospel of St John with ". . . and the Word was a god." All other translations state, ".

. .And the Word was God." Even agnostic scholars of Greek translate this line in the latter way. The translation of the Watch Tower Society does not list, by the way, who it was that translated their "bible." At least the Gnostics knew their Greek . . .

When you say, "What was the Church afraid of?" it is really a question of what the Gnostics were afraid of since they felt the compulsion to use Church terms applied to their philosophy, which is not only unChristian, but anti-Christian.

The Church, as the guardian of Christ's flock, was and is well within the parameters of the Authority granted it by Her Founder, Jesus Christ, to separate the chaff from the wheat in terms of the spiritual food it recommends to Her members. The Gnostics understood this, and this is why they paid the Church's authority the supreme compliment by trying to manipulate it for their own ends.

You sound like someone who is interested in mysticism. May I recommend the "Lost Books of the Bible" which contain perfectly orthodox writings not included in the Bible, but which were once read as authoritative in the Church? Also, the Philokalia is another great source of mystical insight by the Desert Fathers of the Church.

 May God bless you!

Also see: Gospel of Saint Thomas |What the Gospel of Thomas Really Means

Dr. Alexander Roman