A master had three servants.

 A master had three servants. 

 from Farah See’s commentary on The Gospel of Thomas and Other Sayings of Jesus (in the Incoherent series, published by Rantrage Press, 2012, p. 213) – 

The so-called unrecorded sayings of Jesus are often difficult to reconstruct, especially those attributed to the so-called “Gospel of the Apocalypse,” since we have no manuscript for the “Gospel,” only references to it in third-hand copies of the sayings of unnamed oasis fathers. As in this case, which begins as follows:

 

   kai\ ei]pen au00toi=v : kurio&v tiv ei)xen trei_v doulou&v. 

   He said to them, “A master had three servants.”

The parable goes on something like this:

Going away for the night, he left them in charge of his household. When he returned suddenly at midnight, he found them up waiting though they had fallen asleep. He shook each gently and sent them all to bed. Then, he went back out into the night. When he returned in the early morning, he found them again up waiting, but again asleep. Tell me: Will God not know his own whether they are awake or asleep?

Commentary

The parable cannot be genuine; that is, it cannot belong to Jesus of Nazareth. Even less, even though it has been attributed to the “Gospel of the Apocalypse,” can it have come from any early apocalyptic tradition? And the answer to the question, “Where does it come from then?” can only be “We do not know.”

     However, it does ask that tradition an interesting question, “What might God know that you do not, you supercillious, hypocritical, pig-headed prigs?”

01.25.19

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