The Gospel of Thomas

[Doug Millison]

Whether the Church "suppresses" or refuses to recognize as canonical the
Apocrypha or any other non-canonical gospel is beside the point of rj's
earlier post. Jesus' sayings, re living (quoting rj's post)  "like the
birds and the flowers (crows and ravens/larks and blackbirds; anemones),
and not to think of tomorrow" and that "they can achieve their own
salvation, that salvation (i.e. "God") is *within* each individual" are in
fact part of the New Testament gospels, and do constitute fundamental
teachings of the Christian church -- these elements have in no way been
suppressed by the Church, as rj suggested , when he wrote, "But it's what
was left out, or suppressed, (or reinterpreted), which is interesting
[...]"

In the New Testament, Jesus says, frequently, "The Kingdom of God is within
you." (The idea that an individual can find his or her own salvation,
without the intercession of priests, lies at the heart of the Protestant
Reformation.)   In Luke we read, "[...]Don't fret about life--what you're
going to eat--or about your body--what you're going to wear. Remember there
is more to living than food and clothing. Think about the crows:  they
don't plant or harvest, they don't have storerooms or barns. Yet God feeds
them. [...] Think about how the lillies grow:  they don't slave and they
never spin. Yet let me tell you, even Solomon at the height of his glowy
was never decked out like one of them."  (Luke 12:22-24,  27; similar
passage in the gospels of Mark and Matthew).

It is true that the Roman Catholic Church has suppressed Christianity's
mystical tradition, which has only in the past 50 years revived, thanks to
people like Thomas Merton, Thomas Keating, and others.   I believe
Gnosticism at least in some forms was formally declared heretical at some
point, although I'm not clear on that detail.

davemarc wondered, "So how does this relate to Pynchon?" I figure since TRP
quotes a Gospel of Thomas in GR, it's fair game.  Also, the question of
suppressed texts and alternative histories seems a fairly important one in
GR, and TRP takes it up again in M&D. So perhaps it's OK to discuss these
issues here on the P-list.

I agree with rj, Slothrop's epiphany does have the ring of mystical
experience -- this may be what the Kirghiz Light may have had to offer
Tchitcherine had his heart been ready -- although I still see very little
to suggest that Slothrop's wanderings in the Zone parallel the
peregrinations of Jesus' earliest disciples or followers of his teachings
in the first century after his execution while the New Testament gospels
were being written. Slothrop's epiphany seems to me yet another example of
the way Pynchon affirms the mystical experience that lies at the heart of
Christianity (and other faith traditions) even as he rails against the
crimes of the institutional Church.

By the way, Pynchon's citation of re the Rilke poem from the famous GR
passage that rj quotes, may constitute another Biblical reference, to the
name of God. Matthew Fox puts these very lines in an interesting context,
in his book _The Coming of the Cosmic Christ_, where he uses it in a series
of a epigraphs to the chapter entitled "Who is the Cosmic Christ?"

First he quotes:
"Moses said to God:  'If they ask me what your name is, what am I to tell
them?" And God said to Moses, "I Am who I Am.' This, he added, 'is what you
must say to the children of Israel': 'I AM has sent me to you.' " (Exodus
3:13-14)

then:
"Before Abraham came to be, I am." (Jesus)

then Rilke:
"And though Earthliness forget you,
To the stilled earth say: I flow.
To the rushing water speak: I am."




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