Saying 61, the Salome and Jesus Dialogue

One of the most difficult and textually corrupt sections of Thomas is the Salome Dialogue in #61. I decided, as part of my general approach to the translation, to try to offer a reasonably coherent version of this dialogue. What follows is the The final version of logion 61, and my reasoning behind the particular decisions I have made.

61. Jesus said, “Two will rest on a couch. One will die, one will live.”
Salome said, “Who are you, man, that as if you come from unity, you climbed on my couch and ate off my table?”
Jesus said to her, “I am the one who lives from unity. I received that which is my father’s.”
She said, “I am your student.”
Jesus said, “Because of this I say, ‘Whoever is unified will be full of light; whoever is divided is full of darkness.’”

Jesus said, “Two will rest on a couch. One will die, one will live.”

Here I initially preferred "bed" to "couch", but realised that the same Coptic word is used in the next section. If I translate "bed" in Salome's speech, this lends her words a sexual aspect since she is a woman, and Jesus a man, yet nothing else in the dialogue implies any sexual element. Not that I have any particular opinion on Jesus’s sexuality, but I’d like to keep away from the Jesus-ran-off-with-Mary-Magdalene type of suggestion.

Salome said, “Who are you, man, that as if you come from unity, you climbed on my couch and ate off my table?”

Marvin Meyer notes that the Coptic is literally "as from one," but translates it as "as if you are from someone.". Bentley Layton has "like a stranger" as an emendation and notes that it literally means "As for one" Thomas Lambdin leaves it as an ellipsis. I interpret the Coptic
‘OGA’, literally "one", to mean unity, as it does in, for instance logion 22, and in other places, where it is used in the "two into one" motif. This fits well with the emendations in the rest of the dialog.

Jesus said to her, “I am the one who lives from unity. I received that which is my father’s.”

Layton has "from that which is integrated. I was given some of the things of my father."
Meyer has "I am the one who comes from what is whole"
Lambdin has "I am he who exists from the undivided."
I could perhaps render this as "made whole" or "integrated". I prefer "unified" at the moment since it carries the theme through from the previous section.

She said, "I am your student."

I assume here, along with the majority, that this is Salome speaking, but the text doesn't actually include the "she said" or "Salome said".. I translate 'MAQHTHES' as 'student' throughout (which is its literal meaning), just to evoke a different association to 'disciple' and to make the translation a little different to others.

Jesus said, “Because of this I say, ‘Whoever is unified will be full of light; whoever is divided is full of darkness.’”

Lambdin has "destroyed.", which is what the text contains. Here I amend "destroyed" to unified. My precedents are Meyer, who has amended it to "<whole>", and Layton, who has "once integrated".

Adopting the emendation allows me to complete the unification theme
of the dialogue.

In conclusion, I think that I have managed to make some sense of the dialogue by adopting reputable scholarly emendations plus one interpretation of my own, which is the identification of "as from one" as being the "One" or unity which is a major theme of the Gospel of Thomas, and which is simply the literal meaning of the text. Thus, logion 61 begins with a dichotomy between being alive or being dead and ends with a dichotomy between being unified (lit.destroyed), or full of light, and being divided, or full of darkness. In between Salome says that Jesus acts as if he is from One/something (lit. out of one), Jesus replies that he lives from what is unified/integrated (lit.equal) and has that which is his father's. It just seems to me that, in accepting the various emendations and interpreting "out from One" as referring to the same idea of unity, one can see a system of imagery that coheres with much of the rest of Thomas.

***

Some more Notes:

In terns of the Hellenistic and Platonic view of man as body-soul-spirit I tend to think that making the two into one might refer to making the soul and the spirit into a unity,
rather than having the soul be dependent on the body. The fascinating Nag Hammadi text "The Exegesis of the Soul", which is in the same codex as the Gospel of Thomas, interprets female imagery in the Bible and elsewhere in this light. But for the purposes of my translation I have simply taken the state of being 'two' as coinciding with being in darkness and being dead and being blind, etc. Perhaps with the "two will rest on a bed. One will die and one will live", the one that will die is the body, and the one that will live is the spirit, or rather that the person whose soul is connected to his body will die, and the person whose soul is connected to his spirit will live.

In connection with the two and one and life and death imagery, I notice that the Matthew/Luke/Q version of "two in a bed" (and the little one said...) is followed by the image of a carcase with eagles/vultures overhead:

Q/Luke 17:34-37
I tell you, in that night there will be two in one bed; one will be taken and the other left.
There will be two women grinding together; one will be taken and the other left."
And they said to him, "Where, Lord?" He said to them, "Where the body is, there the eagles will be gathered together."

Saying 7, the Lion and the Man

Saying 19, the Five Trees in Paradise

Saying 53, Circumcision of the Spirit

Saying 61 The Salome Dialogue

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

Gospel of Thomas Material:
Sayings and Interpretation
From the Introduction
Intriguing Parallels to Gospel of Thomas Sayings
Short Essays On Difficult and Obscure Sayings
Reviews of the Other Translations of the Gospel of Thomas
Gospel of Thomas Online Resources
Gospel of Thomas Home

Esoteric Christianity Material:
Beryl Pogson on the Gospel of Thomas in 1959
P.D. Ouspensky on Christianity and The New Testament

Gurdjieff, Ouspensky, Nicoll, and Many Others:
an Online Anthology of Fourth Way Writings On Esoteric Christianity

Esoteric Christianity Online Resources

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