For more detailed information about the Gospel of Thomas visit:
www.thomas-gospel.com

The Gospel of Thomas is the most significant and authentic piece of early Christian writing outside of the New Testament. It contains sayings and parables of Jesus that are not found in other texts, along with more original and more esoteric versions of well known sayings of Jesus. Andrew Smith's new translation concentrates on bringing out the esoteric content of the Gospel, and the depth of its imagery. An essay on the 'Inner Meaning of the Sayings' reveals their truths in the light of the Fourth Way system, showing what Jesus' teaching essentially aims at: "a change in the way that we see things and a transformation of what we are".

From 'The Inner Meaning of These Sayings'
One of the barriers to awakening is our thinking. Formatory thinking is a kind of thinking that operates with little attention; it simply applies words as labels. It thinks in opposites; as Ouspensky wrote, it can only count up to two. Yet this is the kind of thinking that predominates in our lives, the automatic thoughts that can never see anything in a new way, and that deaden our perceptions. The Gospel of Thomas includes some features that confound formatory thinking. A peculiar feature of the Gospel of Thomas, and one that is easy to overlook, is its contradictory use of imagery. One must become a king (2), yet kings and powerful men cannnot know the truth (78); intoxification through Jesus is commended (13), but Jesus sees everyone as blind and drunk (28); a true wealth is desirable, but riches are condemned (in my translation I have generally used 'wealth' where the meaning is positive, 'riches' where it is negative). In saying 21 'naked' means that one has lost a higher state, whereas in 37 it represents being free of the clothing of acquired personality. These contradictions are reconcilable, in that there is a right way to be a merchant or to have wealth, or to be drunk, and a wrong way for each of these, but the imagery forces one to think twice and we cannot assume that the sayings are telling us what we may initially think they are telling us. Another way that the Gospel of Thomas upsets formatory mind is its use of various terms – the beginning, the kingdom, light, etc. – for the same state of unity …