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Previous | 361 | Next Thomas has said that he has no language to describe what Jesus is like. Jesus' response suggests that Thomas, through Jesus' words, has seen and drunk deeply from a fountain bubbling with life. Jesus' response suggests that Thomas's drinking of a deep draft from the bubbling spring has left him unable to speak. It is noticeable that the logion does not relate the speaking to the presence of spirit. Here, instead of the spirit providing what one will say (Mark 13:11), intoxication leaves Thomas without utterable words that can describe who Jesus is. Now we get a hint of the significance of the conclusion of the logion that immediately follows this one: what goes into your mouth will not defile you; rather, it is what comes out of your mouth that will defile you. One can answer far too quickly with one's mouth, and this answer will wed a person to ignorance. Drinking deeply from the fountain of wisdom Jesus makes available may produce an inability to state with certainty what something is like. This uncertainty is not ignorance. Rather, it is an intial kind of wisdom that creates within a person the possibility of receiving amazing wisdom from Jesus that most people (even other disciples) cannot even begin to fathom. Gospel of Thomas 16:1-4 GTh 16 also contains a statement by Jesus concerning who he is not. It also contains an argument about who he is: 16 1Jesus said, "Perhaps people think that I have come to cast peace upon the world. 2They do not know that I have come to cast conflicts upon the earth: fire, sword, war. 3For there will be five in a house: there will be three against two and two against three, father against son and son against father, 4and they will stand alone." On the basis of conventional wisdom, most people think Jesus comes to bring peace. Jesus, instead, teaches contrawisdom: he has come to being conflicts in the form of fire, sword, and war. This contrawisdom is present in Q tradition: GTh 16:1-4 Luke 12:51-53 Matthew 10:34-39 Conventional Wisdom: 1 Perhaps people think that I have come to cast peace upon the world. Conventional Wisdom: 34a Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; Contrawisdom (Rule): 2 They do not know that I have come to cast conflicts upon the earth: fire, sword, war. Contrawisdom (Rule): 49 I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! 50 I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed! 51 Do you think that I have Contrawisdom (Rule): 34b I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. Previous | 361 | Next