The analysis of the parallel sayings material in John and Thomas has shown not only the similarity of tenor and diction, as Raymond Brown believed. The parallels represent the world, Jesus, discipleship, salvation in a very comparable way. Indeed, one may even speak about the common theology of the parallels. The summary of the similarities would be as follows:
1. The image of the living God as an unknown Father (GTh 3, GJn 6:57; GTh 18, GJn 8:44; GTh 40, GJn 15:1). Of particular interest is the phrase the living Father ov path,r zw/n which occurs in both gospels and never in the Synoptics, or anywhere else in the New Testament.
2. The world is a carcass (GTh 56, GJn 15:19 & 17:14). It belongs to the devil (GTh 18, GJn 8:44). It is marked by the contrast between flesh and spirit (GTh 29, GJn 3:6, 6:63).
3. The beginning and the end of the world are one and the same with the present (GTh 18, GJn 8:44, GTh 19, GJn 17:5). Both gospel engage in speculations about the beginning, but on a scale nothing like the developed cosmogony of the second century Gnosticism.
4. The Redeemer received everything from the Father (GTh 61, GJn 3:35 & 13:3). Who keeps his words will not taste death (GTh 1 & 111, GJn 8:51).
5. The Redeemer has come into this world of poverty (GTh 28, GJn 1:10-12)
6. The Redeemer is light (GTh 77, GJn 8:12).
7. The Redeemer is the teacher GTh 13, While for the most part in John teacher has a negative connotation of a Jewish leader in GJn 13:13-14, the Washing of the Feet episode, Jesus reveals what it means to be a dida,skaloj. To be a true teacher, means to be different from the socially accepted teachers.
8. The Redeemer speaks with remarkable assurance. He needs no proof for his testimony (GTh 3, GJn 4:42 & 8:13). He is the light (GTh 77, GJn 8:12). He is the living water (GTh 13, GJn 4:13). This particular idea, that is, that the redeemer needs no proof for his words, parallels the Stoic idea of cataleptic impressions.
9. The discipleship is about becoming like the Redeemer (GTh 108, GJn 7:38), renouncing the world (GTh 110, GJn 7:35), being like a little child (GTh 4, GJn 3:4), and worshipping the Father (GTh 15, GJn 4:21- 23).
10. The most important prerequisite of the discipleship is listening to the words of Jesus (GTh 19, GJn 15:7, see also: GTh 1 & 111, GJn 8:51) and keeping them (GTh 78, 79, GJn 8:32).
11. The disciples will never see death (GTh 1, 111, GJn 8:51, GJn 21:23 a tradition that the beloved disciple will not die: The saying spread abroad among the brethren that this disciple was not to die; yet Jesus did not say to him that he was not to die, but, �If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you?�
12. The Redeemer has departed which makes his words even more important (GTh 38, GJn 7:34). One has to seek him, and will not always find him.
Besides using several similar theological concepts like, �the beginning,� �light,� �darkness,� �flesh,� �spirit,� �knowledge,� �understanding,� �living Father,� �to know,� �to seek,� �to find� John and Thomas use similar metaphors for Jesus, some taken from the imagery of agricultural life like: �water,� �spring,� �well,� �vine,� �shepherd,� �sheep,� �fish,� �net.� This common imagery indicates a common sauce-cultural setting, namely, wandering ascetics and their orally transmitted teaching.
Furthermore, I believe that the parallels has shown that the gospels of John and Thomas are not directly dependent. There are only two instances where we have the verbatim agreement and where one can suspect the borrowing. These are the sayings 38 and 77:
GTh 38 Jesus said, �Often you have desired to hear these sayings that I am speaking to you, and you have no one else from whom t hear them.
There will be days when you will seek me and you will not find me.�
GTh 77 Jesus said, �I am the light that is over all things. I am all: from me all came forth, and to me all attained. Split a piece of wood; I am there. Lift up the stone, and you will find me there.
But this verbatim agreement is not enough to establish a literary dependence. Rather, the phrases look very much like favorite sayings of wandering sages. The type of similarity indicates an oral tradition, rather then literary dependence.
The strongest argument for the dependence of Thomas on John rests on the peculiar Thomean expression, the kingdom of the Father. Thomean sayings 96-98 constitute a cluster of material about the Kingdom of the Father. In them there are no parallels with John except if we believe that the combination of the synoptic �Kingdom of God� with Johannine �Father� becomes Thomean �the Kingdom of the Father.� Yet, the phrase "the Kingdom of the Father" occurs twice in Matthew (13:43, 16:29) which, in turn, points again to the environment of Matthean redactor working somewhere in Syro-Palestine. Since no one would argue that the phrase in Matthew "the Kingdom of the Father" is a borrowing from John, there is no reason to suppose that Thomas has borrowed it from the fourth gospel.
The setting of the parallel tradition sayings is defined by several factors. First, we have two communities in which salvation comes through the transmission, listening, and interpretation of the words of Jesus (GTh 1, 19, GJn 8:51, 15:7). We should not immediately assume that the words of Jesus could come only from Q, or the Synoptic tradition in general. Second, the gigantic self-consciousness of Jesus permeates both gospels. Jesus for both Thomas and John is infinitely more important than the world. Such a self- confidence is transferred from Jesus to the disciples. This again indicates a social setting of a rejected sage with his followers.
Can it be proven that the origins of common imagery is the syncretistic-wisdom traditions of Syria? This will not be an easy task. We know a lot about Syrian holy men in the centuries after Christ. Thomean theology of divine spark is quite common among them because they hoped to �reenact� incarnation of the divine logos through asceticism and perfect their own imago Christi. Is there a religious movement that can explain the emergence of the Syrian wisdom tradition which we encounter in the gospels of John and Thomas? In the comments I have suggested Syrian Stoicism as a religious, philosophical and social phenomenon which stands both as a source and the refinement of Syrian wisdom tradition. Syrian Stoics provide a unique insight in the popular syncretistic wisdom from the Near East, albeit from the stand point of high culture of the imperial metropolis. Among the Stoics we find a notion of Stoic sage who much like latter Christian saints traveled around towns and villages of Syria and preached their �gospel� with commands to abstain and endure, and the presence of the divine Logos-Sofia in every human being. I have also mentioned the notion of cataleptic impressions, that is, a claim that statements are true because they are verified by a flawless judgment of a sage. What distinguishes a sage from an ordinary person is that a sage is aware which impression is true and which false. For a sage all knowledge is self-knowledge because it relies on rational power to recognize true (cataleptic) impressions. The notion parallels many sayings in John and Thomas where Jesus expresses remarkable self-confidence and confidence in truth of his statements.
The existence of Syrian tradition of divine human is clearly attested by Celsus (late second century). Origen agrees with the existence of the phenomenon, but disagrees with Celsus in his evaluation of divine humans. Celsus complains that in Palestine and Syria there are many:
who go begging both inside and outside temples, some of them gathering crowds and frequenting cities of camps, and these men are of course urged to prophesy. It is routine for them to be ready with �I am god�, or �a son of a god� or �a divine spirit�; and �I have come, for the universe is already perishing, and you, men, will die because of your wrongdoing, But I want to save you, and you shall see me once again returning with heavenly power. Happy is the man who has worshipped me on this occasion. Against all the rest, in town and country alike, I shall cast eternal fire. And men who are unaware of the impending punishment will repent in vain and wail, but those I have persuaded I shall protect forever.
While some of Celsus� of statements are clearly meant to denigrate Jesus of Nazareth, he does that by comparing him to wandering ascetics of Syria. I believe that Celsus has done his homework well. His purpose is to slander, but he does that as a well informed observer.
Furthermore, it is not reasonable to believe that Syrian divine human tradition started only in the second century, or third century. There has been a radical shift in our understanding of asceticism in antiquity. It is no longer possible to thing of asceticism as a third or fourth century phenomenon represented only by the Christian monasticism and Neo-Platonist reaction. James Francis has successfully argued that the second century only open the way for social acceptability of the subversive virtue of wandering ascetics. According to Frances asceticism gained respectability in the second century AD when the upper literate classes of the empire accepted and transformed its subversive ideas. Ascetic practices of wandering sages became the active practice of duty. This shift should not be understood as a diachronic change from one form of askesis to another. Rather, two practices, the one of wandering ascetics of the lower strata and, the other represented by the moralism of duty of the upper strata existed in the Hellenistic society from the very beginning.
A glimpse into Syrian wisdom tradition could be achieved, among other ways, through the fragments of Stoic philosophers from the region, namely, Antipater of Tyre (1st cent. BC) who believed that the whole world is animate and rational, Posidonius of Apamea (135-50 BC) who believed that philosophers will be awarded the divinely ordained afterlife. Later writer like Lucian, and Bardesanes, Aramaic philosopher and poet are also indispensable. Already the early fragments provide an insight in two levels of the Stoic teaching, namely, the askesis of duty acceptable to the society, and askesis for the divinely ordained afterlife which separates from the society.
If at least a part of the Gospel of Thomas was composed and transmitted in the environment of the wandering ascetics, Thomas has added their sayings to the already established tradition of Jesus� sayings from Palestine. A similar process we can follow in John. As long as Johannine community stayed in Syria, it faced the same social, cultural and historical forces that Thomas faced, this should be enough to explain the similarities in the parallels. Could it be the case that in the early second century a part of Johannine community left Syria and moved to Ephesos where the gospel was redacted in line with the emerging patristic Church and saved from sinking into oblivion? We will probably never know this. But we know that the Gospel of Thomas had a different path, it was saved from oblivion by an illiterate Egyptian peasant fifty years ago. In sum, I believe that the parallels between the two gospels demand from us to seek the forgotten wisdom of illiterate, or semi-literate wandering sages of the ancient Near East.
All quotations from the Bible are from the Revised Standard Version and from: Bible Works for Windows, Hermeneutika, Computer Bible Research Software, Seattle 1993.
All quotation from the Gospel of Thomas are by Marvin Meyer.
Brown, Raymond, The Gospel of Thomas and St. John�s Gospel, in: New Testament Studies 9 (1962/62), pp. 155-177
Drijvers, Han, East of Antioch, Variorum Reprints, London 1984.
L. Edelstein & I. G. Kidd, Posidonius, vol. 1, The Fragments, (Cambridge: University Press, 1972).
Funk, Robert, The Five Gospels, Polebridge Press and Macmillan Publishing, New York 1993.
K�semann, Ernst, Ketzer und Zeuge, ZThK 48, 1951, 292-311.
K�semann, Ernst, The Testament of Jesus:A Study of the Gospel in the Light of Chapter 17, London, 1968.
Kloppenburg, John et. al., Q-Thomas Reader, Polebridge Press, Sonoma, California 1990.
Koester, Helmut, Ancient Christian Gospels, Trinity Press International, Philadelphia 1990.
Koester, Helmut, Introduction to the New Testament, vols. 1& 2, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin and New York 1982.
Long, A. A. and Sedley, D. N., The Hellenistic Philosophers, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1987.
McCullough, Stewart, A Short History of Syriac Christianity to the Rise of Islam, Scholars Press, Chico, California 1982.
Patterson, Stephen, The Gospel of Thomas and Jesus, Polebridge Press, Sonoma California 1993.
Riley, Gregory, Resurrection Reconsidered, Fortress Press, Minneapolis 1995.
Robinson, James and Koester, Helmut, Trajectories through Early Christianity, Fortress Press, Philadelphia 1971.
Westermann, Claus, Roots of Wisdom, Westminster / John Knox Press, Louisville, Kentucky 1995.