The Gospel of Thomas is one of the ancient Nag Hammadi manuscripts, discovered in 1945 in a jar buried in the sands of Egypt. It dates to the second century C.E and is a text from the Gnostics, a mystical group of early Christians who pursued secret knowledge, or gnosis, about God. Gnosis gives union with God, because gnosis can be perceived as the inner spark of divine light. This is exactly what I’ve experienced in a few, precious, and fleeting moments.

The Gospel of Thomas begins with the intriguing statement, "These are the secret sayings that the living Jesus spoke and Judas Thomas the twin recorded." This statement seems to promise to convey Jesus’ wisdom, and I am always seeking unadulterated sacred words. The third saying goes directly to the heart of the matter: "Rather, the kingdom is inside you and outside you. When you know yourselves, then you will be known, and will understand that you are the children of the living Father." This is a directive to go within and seek understanding, and it stands in opposition to an emphasis on outward forms: purity of action and behavior, or allegiance to a hierarchical structure. And here’s where The Gospel of Thomas offers hope. It offers an alternative to the insistence on exterior purity and hierarchy, an insistence which must inevitably lead to terrorism, whether it’s the terrorism of burning heretics at the stake, the terrorism of flying an airplane into a skyscraper to protest the wickedness of an entire society, the terrorism of ethnic cleansing, or the terrorism of bombing an abortion clinic.

We live in a world beset with purity and hierarchy, though I believe that most of the people espousing those values are decent human beings. It’s my feeling that turning within to know God, as the Gnostic Gospels teach, can lead us into a more peaceful, graceful co-existence. Everyone has the right to their deeply held beliefs, but none of us has the right to coerce others into our beliefs. The Gospel of Thomas gives us that spaciousness. "If you bring forth what is within you, what you have will save you," says Jesus in saying 70, and in saying 110, "Whoever finds self is worth more than the world."

Works consulted: Meyer, Marvin W., translator, The Secret Teachings of Jesus: Four Gnostic Gospels (Vintage Books, New York, 1986). Pagels, Elaine, Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas (Random House, New York, 2003). Robinson, James, general editor, The Nag Hammadi Library (HarperSanFrancisco, New York, 1990).

© Traci L. Slatton, 2007

Author Traci L. Slatton is a graduate of Yale and Columbia, and she also attended the Barbara Brennan School of Healing. She lives in Manhattan with her husband, sculptor Sabin Howard, whose classical figures and love for Renaissance Italy inspired her to write a novel set during that time period. Immortal is her first novel.

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