An old hermit was once invited to visit the court of the most powerful king of those times.
– I envy such a saintly man, who is content with so little – said the ruler.
– I envy Your Majesty, who is content with even less than I – responded the hermit.
– How can you say such a thing, when this entire country belongs to me? – said the offended king.
– For precisely that reason. I have the music of the celestial spheres, I have the rivers and mountains of the whole world, I have the moon and the sun, because I have God in my soul.
“Your Majesty, on the other hand, has only this kingdom.”
Posted by Paulo Coelho on his blog.
Reading this story, which I have heard before, reminded me of the following from the Gospel of Thomas (3):
Jesus said, If your leaders say to you, ‘Look, the (Father’s) Kingdom is in the sky!’ Then the birds will be there before you are. If they say that the Kingdom is in the sea, then the fish will be there before you are. Rather, the Kingdom is within you and it is outside you.
When you know yourselves, then you will be known. And you will understand that you are the children of the living Father. But if you do not know yourselves, then you live in poverty, and you are that poverty.
The Gospel of Thomas is a mystical gospel. It was found as part of the Nag Hammadi find. Most of the sayings are to be found in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, but Thomas is thought to be an earlier gospel.
Textual analysis of the Gospels of Matthew and Luke show they were drawing upon an earlier source. Germans called this Quelle, meaning source, usually referred to as Q. The Gospel of Thomas is a possible candidate for Q.
It is known that the Nag Hammadi library was concealed in the 4th century AD, which coincides with the Council of Nicaea’s proclamation of the unity of the faith and officialisation of the doctrine. Any deviation was then deemed to be heretical. Heretical texts were destroyed. For the first 500 years of Christianity, rival exponents of what they believed to be orthodoxy slaughtered each other. In reaction to the standardisation of the religion, the texts were obviously hidden and protected until such time as they could be safely brought back to the surface. No-one could have imagined that they would remain buried for 1,600 years! But maybe it is fortunate for us that they did. Would they have survived had they surfaced earlier?
One is to reflect upon the sayings, seek and ye shall find. Whoever finds the correct interpretation of these sayings will reach immortality. Cf Buddhism, what is the sound of one hand clapping?
– The Gospel of Thomas
– Jesus Wars