Texts in Conversation
Pseudo-Philo and Paul both use a widely known saying about what no eye has seen and no ear has heard. In the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus promises to give it, and he adds what no hand has touched, which neither earlier text has.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Pseudo Philo, Biblical Antiquities 26:13
Classical
12 God said to Kenaz, “Take these stones and put them in the ark of the covenant of the Lord with the tablets of the covenant that I gave to Moses at Horeb, and they will be there with them until Jael arises to build a house in my name; and then he will set them before me upon the two cherubim, and they will be in my sight as a memorial of the house of Israel. 13 “And when the sins of my people are full, and their enemies have mastery over their house, I will take these stones and the former ones together with the tablets, and lay them up in the place from which they were first brought forth, and they will be there until I remember the world and visit the dwellers on earth. Then I will take them, and many others better than they, from that place which eye has not seen nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man, until the like comes to pass for the world; and the righteous will have no need of the light of the sun nor of the shining of the moon, for the light of the precious stones will be their light.” 14 Kenaz arose and said, “See what good things God has done for men, and because of their sins they have been deprived of them all. Now I know this day that the race of men is weak, and their life will be counted as nothing.”
1 Corinthians 2:9
New Testament
8 None of the rulers of this age understood it. If they had known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. 9 But just as it is written, “Things that no eye has seen, or ear heard, or mind imagined, are the things God has prepared for those who love him.” 10 God has revealed these to us by the Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God.
Gospel of Thomas 1:17
Nag Hammadi
16 Jesus said, “People perhaps think I have come to cast peace upon the world, and they do not know that I have come to cast divisions upon the earth: fire, sword, war. For there will be five in a house: three will be against two and two against three, the father against the son and the son against the father, and they will stand as solitary ones.” 17 Jesus said, “I will give you what no eye has seen and what no ear has heard and what no hand has touched and what has not arisen in the human heart.” 18 The disciples said to Jesus, “Tell us how our end will be.” Jesus said, “Have you discovered the beginning, that you are seeking the end? For where the beginning is, there the end will be. Blessed is the one who stands at the beginning: that one will know the end and will not taste death.”
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Notes and References
“... In the Jewish tradition, parallels appear in b. Sanh. 99a and b. Ber. 34b and elsewhere. B. Sanh. 99a refers to “him that waits for him” rather than “those who love him.” With this word choice, b. Sanh. 99a resembles the LXX of Isa 64:3 (and 1 Clem 34.8 and Mart. Pol. 2.3) more than 1 Cor 2:9. A parallel is first found in non-Christian literature in Pseudo-Philo, LAB 26.13. As Tuckett argues, the [...] Pseudo-Philo attestation appears to be independent of the Christian tradition. Closely worded parallels to 1 Cor 2:9 appear in Acts Thom. 36, Const. ap. 7.3.2, and the Testament of the Lord. [...] Closely worded parallels—yet lacking the final phrase of “those who love him”—also appear in the Martyrdom of Peter and the Apocryphal Epistle of Titus. [...] Outside of the texts we will consider in the apostolic fathers, the most frequently studied parallel is probably Gos. Thom. 17: “I will give you what no eye has seen, and what no ear has heard, and what no hand has touched, and what has not occurred to the human mind.” One notes the extra phrase “what no hand has touched,” a phrase that also appears in the Turfan Manichean fragment (which, unlike Gos. Thom. 17, lacks “nor entered into the human heart”). ...”
Hartog, Paul
"1 Corinthians 2:9 in the Apostolic Fathers" in Bingham, D. Jeffrey, editor. Intertextuality in the Second Century
(pp. 107-108) Brill, 2016
* 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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