Texts in Conversation
The Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of the Hebrews, which Clement of Alexandria quotes twice, share a saying that the seeker will find, wonder, reign and rest. Clement never has the seeker troubled, like the Greek text of Thomas and unlike the Coptic.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Gospel of Thomas 1:2
Nag Hammadi
1 He said, “Whoever discovers the interpretation of these sayings will not experience death.” 2 Jesus said, “Let the seeker keep seeking until he finds. When he finds, he will be troubled. When he is troubled, he will be astonished, and he will reign over the All. And once he has reigned, he will rest.” 3 Jesus said, “If your leaders say to you, ‘Look, the kingdom is in the sky,’ then the birds of the sky will precede you. If they say, ‘It is in the sea,’ then the fish will precede you. Rather, the kingdom is within you and it is outside you. When you know yourselves, then you will be known, and you will understand that you are children of the living Father. But if you do not know yourselves, then you dwell in poverty, and you are that poverty.”
Clement of Alexandria, Stromata 2.9.32
Early Christian
The beginning of knowledge is wondering at objects, as Plato says is in his Theoetetus; and Matthew exhorting in the Traditions, says, "Wonder at what is before you;" laying this down first as the foundation of further knowledge. So also in the Gospel to the Hebrews it is written, "He that wonders shall reign, and he that has reigned shall rest. It is impossible, therefore, for an ignorant man, while he remains ignorant, to philosophize, not having apprehended the idea of wisdom; since philosophy is an effort to grasp that which truly is, and the studies that conduce thereto.
Date: 195 C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
Clement of Alexandria, Stromata 5.14.38
Early Christian
In the end of the Timoeus he says: "You must necessarily assimilate that which perceives to that which is perceived, according to its original nature; and it is by so assimilating it that you attain to the end of the highest life proposed by the gods to men, for the present or the future time." For those have equal power with these. He, who seeks, will not stop till he find; and having found, he will wonder; and wondering, he will reign; and reigning, he will rest. And what? Were not also those expressions of Thales derived from these? The fact that God is glorified for ever, and that He is expressly called by us the Searcher of hearts, he interprets.
Date: 195 C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
“... Let Him Who Seeks Continue Seeking [...] (NGH: The Gospel of the Hebrews) [...] The Jewish-Christian version of the saying has to be reconstructed from two quotations presented by Clement in his Stromata [...]. Clement's first quotation seems to be an abbreviated version which is presented as a parallel to Plato's thought according to which the beginning of all knowledge is wondering [...]. It is often noted that the second, more complete, quotation agrees better with the Greek P.Oxy. version of the saying than with the Coptic Nag Hammadi version. The sequence in the Coptic version is: seeking, finding, being troubled, being astonished, ruling over the all, while the Greek Jewish-Christian/P.Oxy. version has: seeking, finding, being astonished, ruling, resting. Thus, the Coptic version has one more step in the middle of the sequence: being troubled and at the end, it refers to “ruling over the all” while the Greek version refers to rest. Rest and reigning often appear as parallel expressions in Wisdom traditions describing the last stage(s) in the process of “salvation” [...]. Although the theme of resting is prominent in the Coptic Gospel of Thomas elsewhere [...], it is omitted in logion [...]. These changes are obviously linked together: “rest” has been removed, “trouble” added and at the end, it is emphasized that the persistent seeker will “rule over the all.” The changes suggest that the Coptic version of the saying [...] was written in a more polemical context than the Greek Jewish-Christian/P.Oxy. version. ...”
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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