These Are the Words of the Secret: The Gospel of Thomas Revealed, by Jean-Yves Leloup

Yeshua said: Whoever lives the interpretation of these words shall no longer taste death.

These are the words of the Secret.
They were revealed by the Living Yeshua.
Didymus Judas Thomas wrote them down.

1. Yeshua said:
Whoever lives the interpretation of these words
will no longer taste death.

2. Yeshua said:
Whoever searches
must continue to search
until they find.
When they find,
they will be disturbed;
and being disturbed, they will marvel
and reign over All.

Prologue

These are the words of the Secret.
They were revealed by the Living Yeshua.
Didymus Judas Thomas wrote them down.

Some would translate “apocryphal words” in the literal sense of the Greek word apocryphos, which means “hidden.” But this prologue implies much more than that: Yeshua has come to reveal to us the Words of the Secret of the Human and of the Divine: God in Human and Human in God…the secret of Being and of Love. In the Gospel of Matthew he invites us to “pray to the Father who is there, in secret,” and not to be rigid in our justice, like the Pharisees and hypocrites. The God of Love who dwells in the depths of human beingness is a secret, and it is from these hidden depths that we can act, think, and speak in true freedom.

Yeshua, the Living, the Awakened One, reveals through his words, his life, and his acts that all human beings can realize and manifest. He fully incarnates life and love, which is why he is given the name the Living One, the revealer of that which we can attain if we allow ourselves to be and live in the Presence of God.

Didymus Judas Thomas, the “twin” (didymos in Greek), is Jesus’ intimate friend who has compiled these words. They were written down by Thomas, which could mean the apostle himself during the time of Yeshua or perhaps another author who represented the lineage of Thomas. (According to later tradition, Thomas died in Madras, India, and his tomb is still venerated there today.) But what is important for us is to read these scriptures so as to come closer to the Word: to hear the voice and the secret of the Living One within us.

Logion 1
Yeshua said:

Whoever lives the interpretation of these words

will no longer taste death.

Hermeneutics, or the art of interpretation, implies something more than exegesis, which often limits itself to reconstructing the context of a scripture in order to explain its structure and meaning—and forgets to look for deeper Meaning. It’s like measuring the structure and thickness of the shell and forgetting to taste the almond inside it.

Hermeneutists are thirsty for Meaning and are not as interested in the color and form of the water jug as they are in drinking at the Source that is accessible through the Words. To be a hermeneutist in this sense means to live the interpretation of the logia of Yeshua. It means to become One—if only for a moment—with that Meaning. This moment of unity awakens in us the Presence of the Uncreated and the taste of something beyond that which is composite and is therefore subject to decomposition—in other words, the taste of something beyond death.

There are different ways of interpreting a piece of music. Players sometimes do a disservice to the composer through their lack of inspiration or by using a badly tuned instrument. But the highest priority in the hermeneutical art is an awareness of the spirit in which we are interpreting the word in question. Is this spirit in harmony, in resonance, with the Life that breathes in the text that we are trying to translate? Of course, we must also have a good instrument, knowledge, and a cultivated intelligence and feeling so as to perceive all the harmonics of this subtle text.

The greatest musicians are those who—after long practice—are able to forget that they are interpreting. They become One with the inspiration that moved the composer, and the music is played through them as through an instrument.

Yeshua has become the interpreter who lives the meaning of Love and Life through deeds as well as words. His exegesis was written not only through his teaching, but also with his flesh, his blood, his laughter, and his tears. Those who had eyes to see saw in him the Living One.

Logion 2

Yeshua said:

Whoever searches
must continue to search
until they find.
When they find,
they will be disturbed;
and being disturbed, they will marvel
and will reign over All.

This logion describes the major stages in gnosis, which constitute a true initiatory process.

The first stage is the quest; the second is the discovery; the third is the shock and disturbance of this discovery; the fourth is wonder and amazement; and the fifth is the presence and reign over All.

The last of these stages is spoken of in the Oxyrhynchus manuscript1, where this reign over the All is further described as the great Repose. This is also echoed in the Gospel of Philip and in Clement of Alexandria (Stromata, Book II).
Some further elaboration on each of these stages may be useful.


1. Seeking

The seeker must always be on the quest. The truth is hidden so as to be found. As the prophet said, it is a “hidden God” who invites us to participate in this great game of the quest.

An old rabbi explained it to his grandson in this way: “When you play hide-and-seek with your friend, imagine his disappointment and pain if he hides and you simply stop looking for him.”

When we stop looking for the hidden God, we resign from the divine game. Yet this game, this quest, is what gives our life meaning.

Is not the whole history of Israel that of a game of hide-and-seek between a people and their God?

Thus the first stage on the path of initiation consists of rediscovering the thirst and taste for the game, the quest. It consists of becoming a seeker and remaining a seeker even after we have found, so as to experience the new and endless depths in what we have discovered.


2. Finding

In a sense, to seek is already to find. Otherwise, how could we ever have the idea to search, how could we be propelled by this desire, unless it were for something that we somehow already know? Surely we have all had moments in our lives that testify to this, moments of discovering the light (if only from a distant star) that had always been there, in the darkest of nights.

“You would not seek me if you had not already found me.” Thus the essential movement of the quest is a genuine opening to what is already here. But we do not know it enough: “In your very center, there is something you do not recognize,” said John the Baptist to his disciples. In our very core there is a Presence that needs to be recognized and affirmed. Seeking/finding means being more and more open to the gift that has always been ours.

Folio 32 of Nag Hammadi Codex II, with ending of the Apocryphon of John, and beginning of the Gospel of Thomas. Fourth century


3. Being troubled and upset

The recognition of Being troubles us and upsets us, for awakening to this dimension forces us to question our ordinary, so-called normal view of the world.

When quantum physics showed that an object could be both wave and particle, both present and absent, many of the best minds were greatly troubled, for ordinary logic could not deal with this phenomenon.
The experience of Being is a radical questioning of our view of reality, a view conditioned by the conceptual means with which we think we understand reality. This discovering that our habitual ways of conceiving the world are no more than that—habits—cannot occur without trouble and upset. The more we accept this trouble as a necessary stage in the evolution of our consciousness, however, the more we are led, little by little, toward wonder and marveling.


4. Marveling

In the fourth century C.E., Gregory of Nyssa said: “Concepts create idols of God of whom only wonder can tell us anything.”

The Greek philosophical tradition also saw wonder and astonishment as the beginning of wisdom. In our time, Einstein remarked that only idiots are incapable of wonder—and we might define idiots as those who forsake their quest, thinking that they know.

The more we discover, the more we marvel and wonder. But these two are not some kind of romantic imagination or fantasy. For Einstein, wonder lay in the fact that at certain moments the world becomes intelligible, that there is a possibility of resonance between our intelligence and the Cosmos, as if they were both animated by the same consciousness. Only after experiencing this wonder can we enter into the mystery of that which reigns over All.


5. Reigning over All

At this stage we perceive ourselves no longer as separate from the world, but instead as a space where it is possible for the Universe to become conscious of itself. I am One with that which reigns over All. The same Spirit, the same Breath, the same Energy that moves mountains and stars, moves me. The Psalmist speaks of “Mountains leaping like rams, and hills like lambs,” an image that would make a modern geologist feel at home. The life that surges in the veins of a child is akin to the sap that makes trees grow.

Here, I see myself only as a particular expression among others of the same All that is One. Here, in the living interconnectedness of all things, I know the immensity of Repose.


6. In Repose

The meaning of the Sabbath is extremely important to Jews. After the time of work, of doing, of possessing, we must take the time to sit before God, to simply be.

The theme of repose is just as important to Gnostics. At last, thinking and feeling are united in this consciousness that animates all things, and we can find true repose. What previously appeared as contradictory or in opposition now appears complementary, for a passage beyond duality has opened up. In the myriad reflections scattered upon all the ponds of the world, we discover a single moon.

This living nonduality is the peace and repose that is endlessly sought during all stages of the initiatory path. But the spiritual path requires us to live the quest fully and not harbor fear or aversion toward trouble and upset, so that we find our home in this wonder and repose. ◆

1 A manuscript discovered in Oxyrhynchus, Egypt, in 1898.

The Gospel of Thomas by Jean-Yves Leloup © 2005 Inner Traditions. Printed with permission from the publisher Inner Traditions International. www.InnerTraditions.com.

This piece is excerpted from the Winter 2020 issue of Parabola, SECRETS. You can find the full issue in our online store. Please consider a print or digital subscription to Parabola or support our work by making a tax-deductible donation here.