The Gospel Of Thomas
'In Thomas we have a gospel untouched by the historical church, and unclaimed by modern orthodoxy. It is a gospel that addresses the deepest questions of our existence and is undoubtedly the most important spiritual discovery of the 20th century'. (Martin Ladbrooke, from 'Kingdom of the ONE)
Exploring the teachings of The Gospel of Thomas.
A website by Martin Ladbrooke
The Sun Rises On A New Gospel.
The Gospel of Thomas consists of 114 sayings only half of which have any correlation to the four biblical gospels. Many historians position the sayings as a collection, a record of everything Jesus said. Ladbrooke contends something different proffering that within their apparent disconnectedness the sayings contain common themes and display an unexpected coherence. That they offer a new way of being, a system of living based on a transformed perspective that resides in unity and interconnectedness.
Thomas offers no chronological narrative, no miracles, nor any story of a resurrection. It makes no reference to the founding of a new church nor does it assign any supernatural qualities to Jesus. Rather it maps a spiritual path that dispenses with the duties and obligations of traditional religion, and instead focusses upon what Ladbrooke terms the 'subjective turn'. This is the path of the 'solitary', a call to those who trust the divinity within, and those who prioritise their own religious experience above the doctrines and rituals of any institution.
We Are All One.
Ladbrooke suggests that Thomas is the mystical offshoot of the early Jesus movement. That like the Vedantic 'Upanishads', Thomas points to the apprehension of an 'Undifferentiated Unity' a 'Oneness' if you prefer. This Unity embraces everything within its scope. It is the song of life, it is everyone you know, it is the animals, the plants and the rocks too, there is simply nothing that it is not. It confirms our lives are intextricably linked with others, with future generations and also with the planet. It is the recognition that interdependency is woven into the very fabric of existence.
Jesus encourages us to see ourselves as integrally part of this' One' great process of everything, to see everything and everyone as arising from the same creative process. He tells us the Unity is both within us and also outside of us, that it is spread out over the earth, hidden in plain sight. He tells us to bind ourselves to it, to learn to relinquish our separate sense of self and acknowledge our higher identity. That this higher identity is our birthright, that it is a path to our peace of mind, to our bliss.
This site begins to explore how the unity concept is evidenced in the Gospel of Thomas, and touches on the implications for what it means for how we live our lives. More detailed explanations are given in Ladbrooke's forthcoming book 'The Kingdom of the One'. (to be published third quarter 2022)
The Gospel of Thomas Themes
Here are a selection of some of the themes that arise from the Gospel of Thomas. In his forthcoming book Ladbrooke explains how they link together to forge a new way to be, a new way of relating to one's place in the world. Ladbrooke challenges those who doubt the validity of the Gospel of Thomas, suggesting that it has a self authenticating legitimacy, a wisdom that extends above and beyond academic and orthdox doubt.
