Texts in Conversation
The Didache tells Christians not to fast or pray like the hypocrites and gives them other fast days and a set prayer. Jesus in the Gospel of Thomas goes much further: fasting brings sin, prayer brings condemnation, and alms harm the spirit.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Didache 8:1
Early Christian
1 Don't fast like the hypocrites, who fast on Mondays and Thursdays. Instead, you should fast on Wednesdays and Fridays. 2 Also, don't pray like the hypocrites. Instead, pray as the Lord commanded in His Gospel, saying: 'Our Father in Heaven, may your name be honored; may your kingdom come; may your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven. Give us today our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors, and do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for yours is the power and the glory forever.' 3 Pray in this way three times a day.
Gospel of Thomas 1:14
Nag Hammadi
13 Jesus said to his disciples, “Compare me and tell me whom I am like.” Simon Peter said to him, “You are like a righteous messenger.” Matthew said to him, “You are like a wise philosopher.” Thomas said to him, “Teacher, my mouth is utterly unable to say whom you are like.” Jesus said, “I am not your teacher. Because you have drunk, you have become intoxicated from the bubbling spring I have measured out.” And he took him and withdrew and spoke three sayings to him. When Thomas returned to his companions, they asked him, “What did Jesus say to you?” Thomas said to them, “If I tell you even one of the sayings he spoke to me, you will pick up stones and throw them at me, and fire will come out of the stones and burn you up.” 14 Jesus said to them, “If you fast, you will bring sin upon yourselves; if you pray, you will be condemned; if you give alms, you will do harm to your spirits. When you go into any land and travel about in the countryside, if they receive you, eat what they set before you and heal the sick among them. For what goes into your mouth will not defile you; rather, what comes out of your mouth is what will defile you.” 15 Jesus said, “When you see one who was not born of woman, fall on your faces and worship him; that one is your Father.”
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Notes and References
“... This saying is almost without parallel in the intensity of its criticism of traditional Jewish practices. As Gianotto has put it, Thomas is ‘totalement négative’ towards prayer, alms and fasting because they are not merely useless but harmful. (In this respect, GTh 14 is different from GTh 6, where this is not stated.) [...] Thomas’s view is stronger than that in Didache 8, where it is traditional ways of praying, or prayer on a particular day, that are condemned. Or again, Ignatius talks of those who have abandoned the Eucharist and prayer (Smyrn. 6.2/ 7.1), the latter presumably in the sense of ‘prayer in episcopally sanctioned assemblies’. ...”
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