Texts in Conversation
In Leviticus, God commands Israel to love the neighbor as oneself. In the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus gives the same command with brother in place of neighbor and soul in place of self.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Leviticus 19:18
Hebrew Bible
17 You must not hate your brother in your heart. You must surely reprove your fellow citizen so that you do not incur sin on account of him. 18 You must not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you must love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord. 19 You must keep my statutes. You must not allow two different kinds of your animals to breed together, you must not sow your field with two different kinds of seed, and you must not wear a garment made of two different kinds of material.
Gospel of Thomas 1:25
Nag Hammadi
24 His disciples said, “Show us the place where you are, since it is necessary for us to seek it.” He said to them, “Whoever has ears should hear. There is light within a man of light, and it lights up the whole world. If he does not shine, he is darkness.” 25 Jesus said, “Love your brother like your soul; protect him like the pupil of your eye.” 26 Jesus said, “You see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but you do not see the beam that is in your own eye. When you remove the beam from your own eye, then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”
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Notes and References
“... In Gos. Thom. 25:1, Jesus says, “love your brother like your soul,” [...]. Gos. Thom. 25:1 is a version of the love commandment from Lev 19:18 LXX ([...], “you shall love your neighbor as yourself”) that achieved wide circulation among early Christians. It is worth noting that some texts (e.g., Mark 12:31) present this commandment the same way as phrased in Lev 19:18 LXX, while others (e.g., Barn. 19:5), like the Gospel of Thomas, counsel the love of one’s soul rather than of oneself. Quite remarkably, the Didache includes both variants and exhorts the reader to love others both [...], “as yourself,” (Did. 1:2) and [...], “more than your soul” (Did. 2:7). There can be no doubt that these two expressions, used in the different versions of the love commandment, “your soul” and “yourself,” are synonymous. It is unlikely that, in Gos. Thom. 25:1, the Thomasine Jesus would [...] say “as your soul” instead of “as yourself,” if the soul were among the inferior elements of the human compound. ...”
Miroshnikov, Ivan
The Gospel of Thomas and Plato: A Study of the Impact of Platonism on the Fifth Gospel
(pp. 80-81) Brill, 2018
* 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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