Gospel of Thomas Saying 53, Circumcision of the Spirit

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Saying 53, Circumcision of the Spirit

53. His students said to him, “Is circumcision of benefit to us or not?” He said to them, “If it were of benefit, their father would have them born from their mother already circumcised. Rather, it is the true circumcision in spirit that is worth something.”

I'd like to get away from the question of whether the Historical Jesus actually came up with logion 53, or whether the abandonment of literal circumcision was, as usually proposed, a development that came later with the influx of gentiles into Christianity, and just examine the saying itself a little more. What kind of circumcision is being referred to here? The most obvious kind of circumcision is the literal and physical circumcision of the penis. Yet there are numerous examples in the Old Testament where those who are literally circumcised are uncircumcised of heart--or of ear or lip. One can be circumcised, in that one belongs to Judaism, and yet be uncircumcised internally. e.g., Jeremiah 9,25: "Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will punish all those who are circumcised but yet uncircumcised -- Egypt, Judah, Edom, the sons of Ammon, Moab, and all who dwell in the desert that cut the corners of their hair; for all these nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel is uncircumcised in heart."

But logion 53 in the Gospel of Thomas may be the only example of circumision of the spirit. Philo comments on circumcision in "Special Laws" and in "Questions and Answers on Genesis." He discusses both hygiene and allegory. Here's the allegory: Special Laws 1, 6 "Thirdly, there is the resemblance of the part that is circumcised to the heart; for both parts are prepared for the sake of generation; for the breath contained within the heart is generative of thoughts, and the generative organ itself is productive of living beings." Here, "breath" is the Greek pneuma, which also means "spirit."

Questions and Answers on Genesis, III, 46 (commenting on Genesis 17:10) "I see here a twofold circumcision, one of the male creature and the other of the flesh; that which is of the flesh takes place in the genitals, but that which is of the male creature takes place, as it seems to me, in respect to his thoughts. Since that which is, properly speaking, masculine in us is the intellect, the superfluous shoots of which it is necessary to prune away and to cast off, so that it, becoming clean and pure from all wickedness and vile, may worship God as his priest. This therefore is what is designated by the second circumcision, where God says by an express law, "Circumcise the hardness of your heart," that is to say, your hard and rebellious thoughts and ambition, which when they are cut away and removed from you, your most important part will be rendered free."

I find "the male creature" interesting here. Though Philo explains it as intellect, in Thomas 114 we have, Jesus said, "I myself shall lead her in order to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. ", where 'living spirit' seems to be identified with being male. Circumcision is an image of cutting away what is considered unnecessary, and so a circumcision of the spirit removes what is unecesssary for the life of the Spirit, and so frees the spirit. Perhaps it is chiefly the circumcision of the heart that frees the Spirit.

The Gospel of Thomas: A New Version Based on the Inner Meaning, by Andrew Phillip Smith, is published by Ulysses Books and is available through Amazon.com