Texts in Conversation
Irenaeus quotes a saying about often longing to hear one of these sayings and having no one to speak it. The Gospel of Thomas has a similar saying, in which the disciples long to hear the sayings of Jesus and have no one else to hear them from.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Gospel of Thomas 1:38
Nag Hammadi
37 His disciples said, “When will you become revealed to us, and when shall we see you?” Jesus said, “When you strip without being ashamed, and you take your garments and place them under your feet like little children and trample them, then you will see the Son of the Living One, and you will not be afraid.” 38 Jesus said, “Many times you have desired to hear these sayings that I am speaking to you, and you have no one else from whom to hear them. There will be days when you will seek me and will not find me.” 39 Jesus said, “The Pharisees and the scribes have taken the keys of knowledge and have hidden them. They have not entered, nor have they permitted those who want to enter to do so. But you—be as shrewd as serpents and as innocent as doves.”
Irenaeus, Against Heresies 1.20
Early Christian
2 Some passages, also, which occur in the Gospels, receive from them a coloring of the same kind, such as the answer which He gave His mother when He was twelve years of age: Did you not know that I must be about My Father's business? Thus, they say, He announced to them the Father of whom they were ignorant. On this account, also, He sent forth the disciples to the twelve tribes, that they might proclaim to them the unknown God. And to the person who said to Him, Good Master, He confessed that God who is truly good, saying, Why do you call Me good: there is One who is good, the Father in the heavens and they assert that in this passage the Æons receive the name of heavens. Moreover, by His not replying to those who said to Him, By what power do You this? But by a question on His own side, put them to utter confusion; by His thus not replying, according to their interpretation, He showed the unutterable nature of the Father. Moreover, when He said, I have often desired to hear one of these words, and I had no one who could utter it, they maintain, that by this expression one He set forth the one true God whom they knew not. Further, when, as He drew near to Jerusalem, He wept over it and said, If you had known, even you, in this your day, the things that belong unto your peace, but they are hidden from you, by this word hidden He showed the abstruse nature of Bythus. And again, when He said, Come unto Me all you that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest, and learn of Me He announced the Father of truth. For what they knew not, these men say that He promised to teach them.
Date: 175-190 C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
“... We saw that Irenaeus quotes one of Papias’ testimonies to sayings of Jesus. Two other agrapha occur in his extant works. The first one reads, according to the Greek text preserved by Epiphanius and the Latin translation, “I have often desired (ἐπεθύμησα) to hear one of these words, and I had (ἔσχον) no one who uttered them”, but the editors conjecture that the text should read, “They have often desired (ἐπεθύμησαν) to hear one of these words, and they had (ἔσχον) no one who uttered them”. This conjecture is confirmed by the plural in a similar saying in the Gospel of Thomas, “Many times you have desired to hear these words which I am saying to you, and you have no one else to hear them from”. Moreover, this saying is paralleled by Matthew 13:17 (“Many prophets and righteous men longed . . . to hear what you hear, but did not hear it”) and Luke 10:24 (“Many prophets and kings desired . . . to hear what you hear, but did not hear it”). ...”
Roukema, Riemer
"Jesus Tradition in Early Patristic Writings" in Holmén, Tom, and Stanley E. Porter (eds.) Handbook for the Study of the Historical Jesus
(pp. 2140-2141) Brill, 2011
* 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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