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Gospel of Truth

About this book

Carry out the Will of the Father

Chapter 12

Make firm the foot of the stumbling, and reach out your hands to the sick, feed the hungry, and to the weary give rest, and lift up those desirous to stand, and wake up the sleeping, because you are the understanding that draws (to itself).
When strength operates in this manner, it grows yet stronger.
Be concerned about yourselves alone.
Do not concern yourselves with others, those you have expelled from your midst.
What you have vomited, return not to it to eat.
Be not moths.⁠
Be not worms, given that already you are throwing it away.
Be not a place for the devil, given that already you have annihilated him.
Do not strengthen your hindrances, those stumbling, like a reinforcement,
because it is the unrighteous person who causes injury, not the righteous person, given that the former carries out his actions as someone unrighteous, while a righteous person carries out his actions for the sake of others.
Consequently, with regard to you, carry out the will of the Father, because you originate from him, because the Father is sweet, and with his will is what is beneficent.
He obtained knowledge of the things that are yours, and you have rested yourselves in them, because by their fruits knowledge is obtained concerning the things that are yours, because the children of the Father are his fragrance, because they originate from the grace of his countenance.
This is why the Father loves his fragrance, and he manifests it in every place, and when it joins with matter, he bestows his fragrance on the light, and in his silent rest he causes it to transcend all form, all sound, because it is not the ears that smell the fragrance, but the spirit is what possesses smell, and it draws it to itself, and it penetrates down into the fragrance of the Father, and he gives it harbor, and he conveys it down to the place where it originated, inside the primordial fragrance that becomes frigid.
It is an entity with a psychic form, subsisting like frigid water that flows on soil without firmness.
Those who see it are under the impression that it is soil.
It afterwards softens again.
If a breath inhales it, it grows hot.
The frigid fragrances, then, result from the separation.
This is why ‹faithfulness› arrived and annihilated the separation, and it conveyed the warming fullness of love, in order that what is frigid would not return, but that there could be the oneness of the perfect thought.

Texts in conversation

Compare Gospel of Thomas 76 and Gospel of Truth 12:6

Nag Hammadi

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Summary

In the Gospel of Thomas, moth and worm cannot destroy lasting treasure. In the Gospel of Truth, people must not become moth or worm, using the same destructive creatures to warn about how people behave.

Passages

Gospel of Thomas 76

Nag Hammadi
75 Jesus said, “Many are standing at the door, but the solitary are the ones who will enter the bridal chamber.” 76 Jesus said, “The kingdom of the Father is like a merchant who had merchandise and found a pearl. That merchant was prudent; he sold the merchandise and bought the single pearl for himself. You too seek his unfailing treasure that is enduring, where neither moth approaches to devour nor worm destroys.” 77 Jesus said, “I am the light that is over all things. I am the All; the All came forth from me, and to me the All has come. Split a piece of wood, and I am there. Lift up the stone, and you will find me there.”
135–200 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in the Gospel of Thomas

Gospel of Truth 12:6

Nag Hammadi
Be concerned about yourselves alone. Do not concern yourselves with others, those you have expelled from your midst. What you have vomited, return not to it to eat. Be not moths. Be not worms, given that already you are throwing it away. Be not a place for the devil, given that already you have annihilated him. Do not strengthen your hindrances, those stumbling, like a reinforcement,
140–180 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in the Gospel of Truth

References

“... 76.3 As for you, seek his unfailing and enduring treasure. The antecedent of ‘his’ can easily be taken as the Father in 76.1 (not the merchant). This statement has a complicated tradition history (cf. esp. Matt. 6.19–20; Lk. 12.33). Its sense is clear enough, however. 76.3 Where no moth comes near to eat and no worm destroys. The pair ‘moth’ and ‘worm’ is unparalleled in the Synoptics, but appears in what looks like an interpretation of this saying in Gos. Truth 32,31–33,32, which begins with reference to the light ‘which does not fail’ [...] and instructs the disciple, ‘Do not be moths. Do not be worms’ (33,16–17). The association of moths and worms in the parable therefore looks like a second-century variant. ...”
Simon Gathercole, The Gospel of Thomas: Introduction and Commentary (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 491.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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Gospel of Thomas 76 and Gospel of Truth 12:6

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