T HE BOOK OF THOMAS is a dialogue between Jesus and Judas Thomas on issues involved in ethical living. To put it more precisely, the Book of Thomas is in the form of a dialogue at the beginning of the text (138–42) and a monologue of Jesus at the end (142–45). The title, given at the end, is also of two parts: “The Book of Thomas—The Contender Writing to the Perfect.” The title has led some scholars to refer to the text as the Book of Thomas the Contender. These features of the text have prompted John D. Turner to conclude that the Book of Thomas is based on two sources, a dialogue between Jesus and Judas Thomas and a collection of sayings of Jesus. According to Turner, the collection of sayings may account for the description in the incipit: “The hidden sayings that the savior spoke to Judas Thomas, which I, Mathaias, in turn recorded.” The incipit of the Book of Thomas, in turn, parallels the incipit of the Gospel of Thomas.

Hans-Martin Schenke suggests a different theory for the origin of the Book of Thomas. He proposes that the document is based on a Hellenistic Jewish text that has been Christianized in the Book of Thomas as a dialogue between Jesus and Judas Thomas. The earlier Hellenistic Jewish text is indicated, according to Schenke, by the second part of the title of the present text: “The Contender Writing to the Perfect.” In Schenke’s view, the contender would have been the patriarch Jacob, who in the Hellenistic Jewish text would have been referred to as sending a letter on wisdom and virtue to those designated as “the perfect.”

The message of the Book of Thomas builds upon the words of the savior that ignorance must be eradicated and knowledge embraced. Jesus says to Judas Thomas,

Since it is said that you are my twin and true friend, examine yourself and understand who you are, how you exist, and how you will come to be. Since you are to be called my brother, it is not fitting for you to be ignorant of yourself. And I know that you have understood, for already you have understood that I am the knowledge of truth. So while you are walking with me, though you are ignorant, already you have obtained knowledge and you will be called one who knows oneself. For those who have not known themselves have known nothing, but those who have known themselves already have acquired knowledge about the depth of the universe. (138)

On the basis of this declaration concerning knowledge, Jesus utters strong words about how to avoid both the fire of passion and the fire of judgment. These words are shaped by the concerns of Jewish wisdom and Greek philosophy, especially Platonic philosophy. Jesus says that “everyone who seeks truth from true wisdom (sophia ) will fashion wings to fly, fleeing from the passion that inflames human spirits” (140); and he adds, in terms that recall Plato’s Phaedo, that the fire that drives people in their passion imprisons them and constrains them like a stake in the heart or a bit in the mouth. Jesus offers a vivid portrayal of the fire of hell worthy of the (Ethiopic) Revelation (or, Apocalypse) of Peter from early Christian literature, and Dante’s Inferno, and he adds final words of shame and blessing .

The Book of Thomas is a part of the Thomas tradition, and “the hidden sayings” of Jesus in the Book of Thomas resemble sayings in the Gospel of Thomas. As in that earlier gospel, in the Book of Thomas Jesus is in the company of Judas Thomas the Twin, and he discusses knowledge of self, the hidden and the visible, the desires of the flesh, and wisdom and foolishness. When Jesus, in Book of Thomas 140–41 and 145, says that the wise person should seek (or pray) and find and reign and rest, he speaks in terms familiar from Gospel of Thomas 2. At the same time, the perspective of the Book of Thomas is more radically ascetic than the Gospel of Thomas, and the Book of Thomas uses harsh language in its condemnation of the fire of passion.

The Book of Thomas is preserved in Coptic translation as the seventh tractate in Codex II of the Nag Hammadi library. It was likely composed in Greek, perhaps in Syria, where Thomas was revered, though Hans-Martin Schenke also identifies Alexandrian traits in the text. The date of composition may be the early third century or even the second century—that is, after the Gospel of Thomas and before the Acts of Thomas.

For further reading: Raymond Kuntzmann, Le Livre de Thomas; Hans-Martin Schenke, “Das Buch des Thomas” Hans-Martin Schenke, Das Thomas-Buch; Hans-Martin Schenke and Einar Thomassen, “The Book of Thomas” John D. Turner, The Book of Thomas the Contender; John D. Turner and Bentley Layton, “The Book of Thomas the Contender Writing to the Perfect.”