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Matthew has the king welcome the blessed into a kingdom prepared for them from the foundation of the world. In the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus goes further and tells the solitary and elect that they came from the kingdom and will return to it.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Matthew 25:34
New Testament
33 He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. 34 Then the king will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in,
Gospel of Thomas 1:49
Nag Hammadi
48 Jesus said, “If two make peace with each other in a single house, they will say to the mountain, ‘Move from here,’ and it will move.” 49 Jesus said, “Blessed are the solitary and elect, for you will find the kingdom. For you have come from it, and to it you will return.” 50 Jesus said, “If they say to you, ‘Where did you come from?’ say to them, ‘We came from the light, from the place where the light came into being by itself, established itself, and appeared in their image.’ If they say to you, ‘Is it you?’ say, ‘We are its children, and we are the elect of the living Father.’ If they ask you, ‘What is the sign of your Father in you?’ say to them, ‘It is movement and repose.’”
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Notes and References
“... The promised blessing consists of a guaranteed entry into the kingdom. This entry is expressed with future tenses in both 49.1 and 49.2, but the reference is not to an eschatological future: it is actually a return to a primordial, protological kingdom in paradise. GTh 18–19 are especially closely related to GTh 49 on this point. This paradise was after all the place of origin of the souls of the elect, a theme which is developed further in the closely related GTh 50. [...] 49.2 For you are from it, and you will return there again. The pre-existence of the kingdom has limited precedent in the canonical Gospels: in Mk 10.40/ Matt. 20.23 and Matt. 25.34, the kingdom and its places are said to have been ‘prepared’, but this does not entail a real pre-existence. The idea of returning to the kingdom is also dependent on a particular psychology, according to which the soul (or spirit or image) is pre-existent, as is clearer in GTh 84, with its reference to ‘your images which came into being before you—which neither die nor are revealed’. ...”
* 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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