The Gospel According to Thomas: Coptic Text

This document is a collection of Logia, a harvesting of about 114 "Sayings of Jesus" together with a prologue which stresses the esoteric character of the sayings and attributes their recording and preservation to the apostle Didymus Jude Thomas. Many of the sentences are identical with the Logia of the Synoptic Gospels or are closely related to them. Nevertheless, there are differences of detail which merit discussion and can often be elucidated as due to a particular source or tradition. The other sayings on the contrary are "extra-canonical". Among these are certain "agrapha" which are already known or can now be recognised in ancient or mediaeval literature from patristic, gnostic, Manichean or even Catharist sources. In particular the sayings written in Greek, which are found in more or less mutilated form in three papyri from Oxyrhynchus appear with certain variations but assembled and arranged in similar manner in three different parts of "The Gospel according to Thomas". It is probable that extracts from apocryphal gospels such as the "Gospel according to the Hebrews" and the "Gospel according to the Egyptians" are also preserved in it. Besides this, the collection comprises many Logia which are quite new and have never before been seen.