Texts in Conversation
Matthew and Luke end the saying about two masters by naming them: God and money. The Gospel of Thomas names no rival master at all and sets the saying among other impossible feats, like riding two horses or drawing two bows.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Matthew 6:24
New Testament
23 But if your eye is diseased, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness! 24 “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money. 25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Isn’t there more to life than food and more to the body than clothing?
Luke 16:13
New Testament
12 And if you haven’t been trustworthy with someone else’s property, who will give you your own? 13 No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.” 14 The Pharisees (who loved money) heard all this and ridiculed him.
Gospel of Thomas 1:47
Nag Hammadi
46 Jesus said, “From Adam to John the Baptist, among those born of women, no one is greater than John the Baptist so that his eyes should not be averted. Yet I have said that whoever among you will become a child will know the kingdom and will become greater than John.” 47 Jesus said, “It is impossible for a man to mount two horses or to stretch two bows; and it is impossible for a servant to serve two masters, for he will honor the one and treat the other contemptuously. No person drinks old wine and immediately desires to drink new wine. New wine is not put into old wineskins, or they might burst; and old wine is not put into a new wineskin, or it might spoil. An old patch is not sewn onto a new garment, because it would tear.” 48 Jesus said, “If two make peace with each other in a single house, they will say to the mountain, ‘Move from here,’ and it will move.”
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Notes and References
“... Parallel to this interpretation is a tendency to expand the text. It was often made possible with v. 24 by quoting only the “proverb” of v. 24a-c and omitting the application to mammon in v. 24d. It happened as early as Gos. Thom. 47, where it is preceded by two other images (no one can mount two horses; no one can bend two bows) and the saying about old and new wine is added (Mark 2:21-22 pars.). No explanation is given: the initiate applies the saying to the incompatibility of gnosis and the material world. Then in the second century the hostile Celsus indicates that the saying was applied to the Christian faith’s claim to exclusivity against heathen religions. ...”
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