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[snyrt_file]

Been reading The Grapes of Wrath. Only started, but it's amazing. And I want to find the Gospel of St. Thomas somewhere to see how many parallels there really are (I've already discovered a couple, based on what I know of Thomas).

From The Gospel of St. Thomas, 77:1-78:3:

Jesus said, "I am the light that is over all things. I am all: from me all came

Comments

For in Him we live and move and have our being.

[chadwah]

There's some prominent NT scholar (John Paul Peter Thomas Something? Can't remember his name for the life of me) who's said that all you really find in the gnostic gospels (of which St. Thomas is one, yes?) is things you find in canonical scripture, plus a lot of nonsense. I haven't read any gnostic gospels myself, so I don't know whether I agree with him or not, but what I have heard of gnosticism in general I don't much like (in that it becomes more about knowledge than grace, and so a bit more snobbish than I think Christianity is meant to be).

The first part I really like (immanence!), and it reminds me of some of the stuff you find in pieces like Gibran's The Prophet.

Just got your letter today (if you couldn't tell); as to Universalism, I'm wary of a God who never gets angry. I think, if you boil it down, everyone really deserves to die -- and it's the gift of grace that we get a second chance. I also feel that God's wrath can be -- if it isn't always -- and expression of God's love. So I tend to think Universalism is

Re: For in Him we live and move and have our being.

[snyrt_file]

...My first encounter with the Gospel of St. Thomas was after watching the movie Stigmata (which I enjoyed more than I expected to). I wanted to see what the sources were really about.

I tend to be more inclined to agree with Faulkner, at least as far as wrath on le grande scale is concerned: the destruction and sin wrought by man is its own punishment. But then, my interest in God and organized religion in general tends more toward the academic side rather than personal...

Incidentally, having only read about a third of the book by today's posting, I'm not sure I see enough of Grapes to know what the "message" is. I'mm curious to know what you see as the book's message, and why you disagree with it.

Also, on a related note, what issue do you take with humanism?