Texts in Conversation
Hebrews places persecuted faithful people above an unworthy world. The Gospel of Thomas applies a similar judgment to someone who recognizes the world as a corpse, shifting the emphasis from endurance to understanding.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Hebrews 11:38
New Testament
36 And others experienced mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. 37 They were stoned, sawed apart, murdered with the sword; they went about in sheepskins and goatskins; they were destitute, afflicted, ill-treated 38 (the world was not worthy of them); they wandered in deserts and mountains and caves and openings in the earth.
Gospel of Thomas 1:56
Nag Hammadi
55 Jesus said, “Whoever does not hate his father and mother cannot be my disciple; and whoever does not hate his brothers and sisters and take up his cross as I do will not be worthy of me.” 56 Jesus said, “Whoever has come to understand the world has found a corpse; whoever has found a corpse is superior to the world.” 57 Jesus said, “The kingdom of the Father is like a man who had good seed. His enemy came at night and sowed weeds among the good seed. The man did not let them pull up the weeds; he said to them, ‘Lest you go to pull up the weeds and pull up the wheat along with them.’ For on the day of the harvest the weeds will be conspicuous, and they will be pulled up and burned.”
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Notes and References
“... 56:1 Jesus said: “Whoever has come to know the world has found a corpse. 56:2 And whoever has found ⟨a⟩ corpse, of him the world is not worthy.” 80:1 Jesus said: “Whoever has come to know the world has found the body. 80:2 But whoever has found the body, of him the world is not worthy.” The structure of both sayings is clearly chiastic: world—corpse (body) / corpse (body)—world. The expression “of him the world is not worthy” [...] parallels “of whom the world was not worthy” [...] of Heb 11:38. [...] As Harold W. Attridge points out, its phrasing follows the established proverbial pattern—see, e.g., Prov 8:11 LXX (nothing precious is worthy of wisdom) and Matt 10:37 (he who is too attached to his family is not worthy of Jesus; cf. Gos. Thom. 55). [...] The point of both sayings is the same: the one who recognizes the unworthiness of the world is worthier than the world itself. Similar sentiments are attested not only in Heb 11:38 (cf. Heb 11:7), but also in the wide range of early Jewish and early Christian documents. ...”
Miroshnikov, Ivan
The Gospel of Thomas and Plato: A Study of the Impact of Platonism on the Fifth Gospel
(p. 46) Brill, 2018
* 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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