Texts in Conversation
In the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus compares what Thomas has received from him to drinking from a bubbling spring. Similar Coptic language describes a spring of life in the Discourse on the Eighth and Ninth, connecting the image with a divine vision.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Gospel of Thomas 13
Nag Hammadi
12 The disciples said to Jesus, “We know that you will leave us. Who will be our leader?” Jesus said to them, “Wherever you are, you should go to James the Just, for whose sake heaven and earth came into being.” 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.”
Discourse on the Eighth and Ninth 3:11
Nag Hammadi
You bestow power on me. I behold myself. I desire to speak. Fear holds me back. I have discovered the summit of the power above every power, the one without a beginning. I see a fountain bubbling up with life. O my son, I have said that I am Mind. I have witnessed (it). Language is incapable of revealing this, because, O my son, the entire Eighth and the souls that dwell inside it, as well as the angels, silently sing a hymn, and I, Mind, understand.”
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Notes and References
“... 13.5 When you drank, you became drunk with the bubbling spring which I have dug. The question here is whether this is a commendation or a rebuke of Thomas. Most commentators take it to be a reference to the sobria ebrietas of mystical understanding, but it is notable that this statement by Jesus follows on from the correction of Thomas’s view. Thomas has perhaps gone too far. The saying goes on to make it clear that Thomas certainly is not yet as advanced as he could or ought to be, even though he has drunk from the spring. [...] On the spring as a source of life, see Disc. 8–9 58,13–14, where the language ([...]) is very similar to that of Thomas. The water imagery does not betray any clear relationship to John’s gospel, pace E.W. Saunders, ‘A Trio of Thomas Logia’, 44–48. ...”
* 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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