Texts in Conversation
Second Clement says the first, spiritual church was created before the sun and moon. The Gospel of Thomas instead blesses each person who existed before coming into being, and gives the disciples paradise trees that no season changes.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Gospel of Thomas 1:19
Nag Hammadi
18 The disciples said to Jesus, “Tell us how our end will be.” Jesus said, “Have you discovered the beginning, that you are seeking the end? For where the beginning is, there the end will be. Blessed is the one who stands at the beginning: that one will know the end and will not taste death.” 19 Jesus said, “Blessed is the one who existed before coming into being. If you become my disciples and listen to my words, these stones will serve you. For you have five trees in paradise which do not change, summer or winter, and their leaves do not fall. Whoever knows them will not taste death.” 20 The disciples said to Jesus, “Tell us what the kingdom of heaven is like.” He said to them, “It is like a mustard seed, the smallest of all seeds; but when it falls on plowed soil it produces a great plant and becomes a shelter for birds of the sky.”
2 Clement 14:1
Early Christian
1 Therefore, brothers and sisters, if we do the will of God our Father, we will be part of the first Church, which is spiritual and was created before the sun and the moon. But if we do not do the will of the Lord, we will be as the Scripture says, ‘My house has become a den of robbers.’ So let us choose instead to be part of the Church of life, that we may be saved.
Date: 130-160 C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
“... Their pre-existent souls are perhaps the grounds for this immortality (19.1), but their salvation is also conditional upon their allegiance and obedience to Jesus (19.2: ‘If …’). The characterisation of the elect as having an existence before their earthly manifestation is certainly an advance upon the idea of mere election or predestination, and is more individualised than the conception of the pre-existent church which was current in some literature contemporaneous with Thomas (2 Clem. 14.1; Herm. 8 [Vis. 2.4].1). [...] Secondly, and relatedly, the trees are unaffected by the seasons. The reason for this is probably the widespread idea that paradise came into being before the creation of the sun and moon, and therefore because of its prior existence is not subject to their influence. [...] The same is predicated of the church in 2 Clement, ‘the first church, the spiritual one, created before the sun and moon’ (2 Clem. 14.1). ...”
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