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Scholarly Quotes

F. F. Bruce writes: “This Gnosticizing variant of Saying 41 may refer to the heavenly light, which is the salvation of those who possess it but the destruction of those who lack it.” (Jesus and Christian Origins Outside the New Testament, p. 140)

Robert M. Grant and David Noel Freedman write: “This is a Gnostic version of the synoptic saying already reproduced in Saying 42 [41]. The Gnostic ‘begets’ within himself the kingdom or Jesus or light and will be saved by what he begets; the non-Gnostic has nothing and will be killed by this nothing(ness).” (The Secret Sayings of Jesus, p. 174)

Funk and Hoover write: “This saying reminded the Fellows of the gnostic idea that one’s salvation depends on possessing - and recognizing in oneself - a piece of the divine, sacred spark, a fragment of the ‘light,’ which signals one’s true origin in the one high God, the ultimate source of other divinities, including the creator God. If one possesses it and recognizes it, salvation is assured (note Thom 24:3, where this same idea is explicit). If one does not possess the divine spark, there is nothing one can do about it. Such a deficiency is alsu alluded to in Thomas 67. Because of the affinities of these ideas with gnostic views and their remoteness from what is otherwise known of Jesus, the Fellows designated the saying black by common consent.” (The Five Gospels, p. 513)

Gerd Ludemann writes: “Thomas’s formulation is dualistic. It is a matter of life (= salvation) and death. Salvation is manifestly connected with knowledge of one’s own self, one’s heavenly origin, which is light. Otherwise, if the knowledge is not attained, the result is death.” (Jesus After 2000 Years, p. 626)