Texts in Conversation
Philo uses an insult about illegitimate birth for people who do not know their divine Father. In the Gospel of Thomas, knowing one's parents brings the same insult, reversing the connection between knowledge of one's origin and shame.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Philo, The Special Laws 1:332
Classical
331 There is also a third class, who have taken the opposite path, leading a multitude of men and women, old and young, filling the world with arguments in favour of a multiplicity of rulers, so as by this means to eradicate all notions of the one and truly living God from the minds of men. 332 These are the ones the law symbolically calls the sons of a harlot. For just as mothers who are harlots do not know who the real father of their children is, and cannot record him accurately, but have many men, or I might almost say all men, as their lovers and associates, so it is with those who are ignorant of the one true God. For, inventing a great number of beings whom they falsely call gods, they are blind to the most important of all existing things, which they ought to have thoroughly learnt from their earliest childhood, if not as the only thing, then at least as the first and greatest of all things; for what could be more honourable to learn than the knowledge of the true and living God?
Date: 20-50 C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
Philo, The Decalogue 1:8
Classical
7 and the neglect of divine things is evident to those who see clearly; for they, having fashioned an infinite variety of appearances by the arts of painting and sculpture, have surrounded them with temples and shrines, and have erected altars, and adorned them with images and statues, and structures of that kind, giving celestial honours to all sorts of inanimate things, 8 and the sacred scriptures very aptly liken these men to men born of a harlot. For as those men are registered as the children of all the lovers their mothers have had, and call them their fathers, through ignorance of the one who is by nature their real father, so also these men in cities, not knowing the truly and really existing and true God, have made deities of an innumerable host of false gods. 9 Then, as different beings were treated with divine honours by different nations, the diversity of opinions about the Supreme Being also bred disputes about all kinds of other subjects; and it was with these facts in view, first of all, that Moses decided to give his laws outside the city.
Date: 20-50 C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
Gospel of Thomas 105
Nag Hammadi
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.” 105 Jesus said, “Whoever knows the father and the mother will be called the child of a harlot.” 106 Jesus said, “When you make the two one, you will become children of man, and when you say, ‘Mountain, move!’ it will move.”
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Notes and References
“... (4) A fourth possibility, suggested by Grant & Freedman, is that in this saying Jesus is taken to anticipate the criticisms which Thomas Christians will meet: although they are truly those who know the supreme Father and spiritual Mother, the Holy Spirit (cf. GTh 101), the elect disciples will be accused of being spiritually illegitimate. This is the most likely interpretation. It does justice to the language of ‘knowing the father and the mother’: cf. 69.1: ‘those who know the Father’ [...], and the numerous other instances of ‘the Father’. It also makes sense of the ‘will be called’ phraseology. The accusation of bastardy against disciples makes sense as an extension of the same accusation against Jesus himself: just as Jesus was accused of being a ‘son of a prostitute’ (quaestuariae filius, Tert. Spect. 30, c. 196–197 ce), so the same could be applied to his true disciples. [...] Will be called “son of a prostitute”. This metaphorical accusation more naturally fits a reference specific to Jesus, but can also be found in a more general sense: see e.g. Pes. Rabb. 21.6 (100b–101a), where the ‘son of a prostitute’ is envisaged as saying that there are two gods. Closer in time to Thomas are the frequent references in Philo to those polytheists who are symbolically ἐκ πόρνης, in the sense that they have many divine fathers whom they worship but are ignorant of the real Father (Mig. 69; Dec. 8; Conf. 144; Spec. Leg. 1.331–332). ...”
* 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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