Texts in Conversation
In Luke, the call to be ready and the warning about a thief occur near each other. In the Gospel of Thomas, the householder himself gets ready for the thief, bringing the two instructions together in one example.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Luke 12:35
New Testament
35 “Get dressed for service and keep your lamps burning; 36 be like people waiting for their master to come back from the wedding celebration, so that when he comes and knocks, they can immediately open the door for him. 37 Blessed are those slaves whom their master finds alert when he returns! I tell you the truth, he will dress himself to serve, have them take their place at the table, and will come and wait on them! 38 Even if he comes in the second or third watch of the night and finds them alert, blessed are those slaves! 39 But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into.
Gospel of Thomas 103
Nag Hammadi
102 Jesus said, “Woe to the Pharisees, for they are like a dog lying in the manger of oxen; the dog neither eats nor allows the oxen to eat.” 103 Jesus said, “Blessed is the man who knows where and when the brigands will enter, so that he may rise, gather his domain, and gird his loins before they enter.” 104 They said to Jesus, “Come, let us pray today and let us fast.” Jesus said, “What sin have I committed, or in what have I been defeated? But when the bridegroom leaves the bridal chamber, then let them fast and pray.”
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Notes and References
“... Although a spatial sense is more common for [...], the temporal sense fits with the (admittedly loose) Synoptic parallel (Matt. 24.43; Lk. 12.39): ‘Know this, that if the householder knew at what watch of the night (Lk: at what hour) the thief was coming, (Matt: + he would have kept watch and) he would not have allowed his house to be broken into.’ [...] And prepare himself before they come in. ‘Prepare himself’ is literally the biblical idiom ‘gird up his loin(s)’ (very common in the OT; in the NT, Lk. 12.35; Eph. 6.14; 1 Pet. 1.13): see also GTh 21.7. It means not ‘departure’ or ‘arming oneself’ per se, but preparing oneself for actions. The use of the phrase may be indicative of a relationship to Luke’s version: Luke’s Jesus exhorts the disciples to gird up their loins (Lk. 12.35), before recounting the parable in which the master of the house will gird himself (Lk. 12.37), and the instruction parallel to this saying in GTh 103 (Lk. 12.39). ...”
* 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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