Thomasine Metamorphosis: Community, Text, and Transmission from Greek to Coptic

Kim

The 2012 International Conference, CESNUR

El Jadida, Morocco, 20-22 September 2012: Houab Doukkali University

Paper was delivered by David William Kim, University of Edinburgh, UK

Thomasine Metamorphosis:

Community, Text, and Transmission from Greek to Coptic[endnoteRef:1] [1: This paper has been published in the book: Stephanie Hathaway and David W. Kim (ed.), Intercultural Transmission in the Medieval Mediterranean. London, Continuum, 2012, 3-36. ]

The Thomas people were initially a branch of the Jesus movement, composed under the individual leadership of Thomas, based on his own revelation and belief. If this is so, some questions should be considered, such as: What was the social policy of the Graeco-Roman Empire in which the leader(s) of the community had to make decisions about the texualisation of the community canon? Where was the geographical and religio-cultural genesis of the Thomasine community? What was the initial language of the ancient text? And why did they choose that language among many other languages of the era? The three fragments of the Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 654, 1, 655, together with the Nag Hammadi Codex II, 2.32:1051:28, not only present a new perspective on the genetic DNA of the Thomas people, but also reconfirm the linguistic insight that the Greek Thomas was cross-culturally translated into Coptic for those outsiders of ancient Christianity.

The Jesus people were persecuted from the time of the Founder to the reign of Constantine (313 A.D.). Many of the Roman Emperors, as well as the local rulers of the Eastern region, directly or indirectly impacted the process of the Christian persecution during their official period.[endnoteRef:2] Domitian (8196 A.D.)[endnoteRef:3], after his father Vespasian (6979 A.D.) and his brother Titus (8081 A.D.), continuously afflicted Christians in connection with other Jews in various ways, although Richardson and Moreau doubts the separate identities of Christians and Jews in the time of Domitian.[endnoteRef:4] When the Caesar, for example, compelled the two groups to pay the Temple tax to the Jerusalem temple of Jupiter (Zeus)[endnoteRef:5], Christians were executed for refusing to offer sacrifices before Domitians image (92 A.D.).[endnoteRef:6] The cruel behavior of Domitian is likewise applied in the event of the capital punishment of his own family: the charge of atheism that was made against his own cousin, the consul Flavius Clemens, and his wife Domitilla, was presumably about their being Christians or Christian sympathisers (Roman History, LXVII[endnoteRef:7]). [2: Romes anti-Christian Emperors were: Tiberius (1437 A.D.), Hadrian (117138 A.D.), Antoninus Pius (138161 A.D.), Marcus Aurelius (161180 A.D.), Septimius Severus (193211 A.D.), Maximin the Thracian (235238 A.D.), Decius (249251 A.D.), Valerian (253260 A.D.), Gallienus (260268 A.D.), and Diocletian (284305 A.D.). ] [3: Domitian was one of the evil emperors, represented in the writings of Suetonius (Domitian 13). Barrett, The New Testament Background and Seconded Documents, 1920.] [4: Richardson, Israel in the Apostolic Church. 4041. The Christian sect was first distinguished from Judaism in the time of Nero (64 A.D.).] [5: The most dominant Greek gods Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Artemis, Athena, Hermes, Ares, Aphrodite, Demeter, Dionysus, and Hephaestus, but not Apollo were identified with the Roman gods respectively: Jupiter, Juno, Neptune, Diana, Minerva, Mercury, Mars, Venus, Ceres, Bacchus, and Vulcan. Spivey, and Smith, Anatomy of the New Testament: A Guide to Its Structure and Meaning, 3445.] [6: Williams, Chronology of the Ancient World: 10,000 B.C. to A.D. 799, 314315.] [7: Domitian slew, along with many others, Flavius Clemens the consul, although he was a cousin and had wife Flavia Domitilla, who was also a relative of the emperors. The charge brought against them both was that of atheism, a charge on which many others who drifted into Jewish ways were condemned. Cary, Earnest. Dios Roman History VIII, 349350. Ayer, A Source Book for Ancient Church History: From the Apostolic Age to the Close of the Conciliar Period, 1112.]

The persecution by the imperial authority did not stop, but extended to the reign of Trajan (98117 A.D.). The persecution of Ignatius, the Bishop of Antioch who was martyred for his Christian faith (108 A.D.), was representative as the spread of the new Christian religion separate from Judaism motivated the Roman citizens to complain about unemployment among pagan temple-servers.[endnoteRef:8] Trajan also instructed Pliny the Younger (Caius Caecilius Secundus) not to pay attention to anonymous denunciations of Christians when the governor of Bithynia had asked for advice about Christians being the source of the social trouble in the north of Asia Minor (Letters 10.9697: 112 A.D.).[endnoteRef:9] The mistreatment that occurred during the religious conflict in the local society eventually caused a socio-political revolt against the Romans at the end of Trajans reign. At this time, there was also considerable internecine strife between Christians and Jews, particularly in Cyrene and Cyprus (117 A.D.).[endnoteRef:10] [8: The tradition of Ignatius death is that he was thrown to the lions in the arena. His saying of suffer me to be eaten by the beasts, through whom I can attain God, shows that Ignatius was ready to die for his Christian belief. See The Epistle of Saint Ignatius to the Romans IV. 1. in Everitt, Part III: The Christian Testament Since the Bible, 2325.] [9: The Younger Pliny, The Letters of Pliny, 9799. Sher Win-White, Fifty-Letters of Pliny, 6871. Bull, The Rise of the Church, 154156. Ayer, 1923. ] [10: Williams, 321. De Ste Croix, Early Christian Attitudes to Property and Slavery in Church Society and Politics: Papers Read At the Thirteenth Summer Meeting and the Fourteenth Winter Meeting of the Ecclesiastical History Society, 138.]

The Roman law forbidding circumcision in the land of Judea became a major factor in the 132135 A.D. revolt in which 580,000 men from anti-Roman groups (presumably including the converted Jewish-Christians) were slain during the reign of the next emperor, Hadrian (117138 A.D.).[endnoteRef:11] The Christian persecutions from the second half of the first century (69 A.D.) to the first half of the second century (138 A.D.) were not the first time in history that the Roman Empire exerted such pressure, but were simply the ongoing condition of the Christian communities, demonstrating that the post-Jewish War period 69138 A.D. was not the right time for the textual project of Thomas.[endnoteRef:12] [11: Although this looks like a matter concerning the traditional Jews only, if one considers the Christian communities as being Jewish-led in the history of early Christianity, the 580,000 men could be not only Jews, but Jewish Christians as well. Dio Cassius, Roman History LXIX. 12: 445. Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiastica IV, vi 14. See Cary, 446449. Freeman, Egypt, Greece and Rome: Civilizations of the Ancient Mediterranean, 418421.] [12: The archaeological evidence of the Oxyrhynchus Papyrus, which has already generalised the production of the original Logia as having occurred at least in the period pre-140 A.D., indicates that this was improbable during the reigns of the post-Hadrian emperors as well. See Yamauchi, Pre-Christian Gnosticism, 8990. ]

If the reigns of Tiberius (1437 A.D.), Gaius (Caligula: 3741 A.D.), and Claudius (4154 A.D.) were not also the actual time of the textualisation of the Thomas Gospel, but were only oppressed times for the members of the community, the Jesus Logia project must have been transformed into written form during the first half of the reign of the next emperor, Nero (originally called Lucius Domitius, 5468 A.D.), who hated Christians intensely and executed the leaders and members of the Christian community as proof of his socio-political strategy.[endnoteRef:13] The initial five years (called the quinquennium) of the sixteen-year-old emperors reign, with the assistance of Seneca[endnoteRef:14] and Burrus,[endnoteRef:15] were peaceful.[endnoteRef:16] But this peace did not last; rather, it changed into a dictatorship under the despotic advice of Tigellinus, when Nero officially became an adult (twenty-one years) in 59 A.D. The number of victims under the persecution of Nero is uncertain. The fire on 19 July 64 A.D., which burned more than half of Rome and its property,[endnoteRef:17] was one of the major historical incidents blamed on the new Christian movement.[endnoteRef:18] The actual cause has not been identified, but the disaster was used by the corrupt Caesar as a method of self-protection against his political opponents. Cruel persecution reached its climax in the history of the pre-Constantine era under Nero. The situation is clearly expressed in the writings of P. Cornelius Tacitus:[endnoteRef:19] [13: Merrill, Essays in Early Christian History, 82130. Spence, Early Christianity and Paganism: A. D. 64 to the Peace of the Church in the Fourth Century, 4063. Klauck, The Religious Context of Early Christianity: A Guide to Graeco-Roman Religions, 306308. ] [14: He was known as one of the most articulate proponents of Roman Stoicism (a single brotherhood of the world). Gallio, who was Senecas brother, was also governor of Greece in this period (Acts 18:12). Freeman, 408411.] [15: He was the prefect of the praetorian guards. Ferguson, Backgrounds of Early Christianity (Third Edition), 34.] [16: See Pauls Rom. 13.] [17: The fire, which began among the shops filled with wares, raged for six days and seven nights. Numberless palaces and important buildings were consumed. A full account is presented in Annals of Tacitus (XV.2). See Johnson, The Writings