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Two As One

Data

(1a) Gal 3:27-28
(1b) 1Cor 12:13
(1c) Col 3:10-11
(2a) Thom 22:4
(2b) Thom 106:1
(3) Gospel of the Egyptians 5b
(4) 2 Clement 12:1-6

 

Texts

(1) Paul

(1a) Gal 3:27-28
/27/ As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. /28/ There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.

(1b) 1Cor 12:13
For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body---Jews or Greeks, slaves or free---and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.

(1c) Col 3:10-11
[you] have clothed yourselves with the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator. /11/ In that renewal there is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all and in all!

 

(2) GThomas

(2a) Thom 22:4
/1/ Jesus saw some babies nursing. /2/ He said to his disciples, "These nursing babies are like those who enter the <Father's> domain. /3/ They said to him, "Then shall we enter the <Father's> domain as babies? /4/ Jesus said to them, "When you make the two into one, /5/ and when you make the inner like the outer and the outer like the inner, and the upper like the lower, and when you make the male and female into a single one, so that the male will not be male nor the female be female, /6/ when you make eyes in place of an eye, a hand in place of a hand, a foot in place of a foot, an image in place of an image, /7/ then you will enter [the <Father's> domain]. [Complete Gospels]

(2b) Thom 106:1
Jesus said, "When you make the two into one, you will become children of Adam." [Complete Gospels]

 

(3) Gospel of the Egyptians (GEgy 5b)

/5/ Contending further for the impious doctrine he (Julius Cassianus) adds; "And how could a charge be brought against the Savior, if he has transformed us and freed us from error, and delivered us from sexual intercourse?" In this matter his teaching is similar to that of Tatian. But he emerged from the school of Valentinus. Therefore Cassianus now says, When Salome asked about when what she had inquired about would be known, the Lord said, "When you have trampled on the garment of shame and when the two become one and the male with the female (is) neither male nor female." Now in the first place we have not this word in the four Gospels that have been handed down to us, but in the Gospel of the Egyptians. Further, he seems to me to fail to recognize that by the male impulse is meant wrath and by the female lust. (Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis, 3.13.92.1-93.1) [Loeb Classical Library]

 

(4) 2 Clement (2Clem12:1-6)

/1/ Let us then wait for the kingdom of God, from hour to hour, in love and righteousness, seeing that we know not the day of the appearing of God. /2/ For when the Lord himself was asked by someone when the kingdom would come, he said, "When the two shall be one, and the outside as the inside, and the male with the female neither male nor female." Now "the two are one" when we speak with one another in truth, and there is but one soul on two bodies without dissimulation. /4/ And by "the outside as the inside" he means this, that the the inside is the soul, and the outside is the body. Therefore, just as your body is visible, so let your soul be apparent in your good works. /5/ And by "the male with the female neither male nor female" he means this, that when a brother sees a sister he should have no thought of her as female, nor she of whim as male. /6/ When you do this, he says, the kingdom of my Father will come. [Loeb Classical Library]

 

HODOS Discussion

see post from Don Randall plus ensuing discussion

 

Notes

John Dominic Crossan

Item: 13
Attestation: Multiple
Stratum: I (30-60 CE)
Historicity: -

While this complex is one of 12 complexes with plural attestation that refer to the kingdom of God, Crossan does not consider it historical. Like 120 The Lord's Prayer [1/3], whose authenticity Crossan also rejects, this complex concerns ritual activity. Crossan [Historical Jesus, 293] suggests that the shared interest in ritual activity may indicate that this was "a generative matrix for early and plurally attested materials that do not, despite that status, go back to Jesus himself."

When discussing the complex itself, Crossan draws on Dennis MacDonald, There Is No Male and Female: The Fate of a Dominical Saying in Paul and Gnosticism. (Harvard Dissertations in Religion, 20) Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1987.

Noting the baptismal themes and the triadic forms involved with this saying, Crossan suggests that the most original version of the saying was probably a triad of dual expressions, each offering an alternative statement of the same point. While Crossan does not think the surviving forms of this complex stem from the historical Jesus, he thinks it is an interpretation of a saying that does derive from Jesus [Historical Jesus, 298]. He concludes:

Jesus' Kingdom of nobodies and undesirables in the here and now of this world was surely a radically egalitarian one, and, as such, it rendered sexual, social, political and religious distinctions completely irrelevant and anachronistic. Different Christian groups could and did focus that radical egalitarianism on this or that distinction, for example, the Corinthians on sex and gender, or Paul on religion and freedom. Usually and eventually such a single focus betrayed egalitarianism even in that one limited area. But radical lack of social differentiation remained a permanent challenge to all other specifications, interpretations, and actualizations of the Kingdom proclaimed by Jesus.

 

Jesus Seminar

NB: This cluser was not identified as a separate element of the tradition by the Jesus Seminar. No voting data is reported for Gal 3:27-28; 1Cor 12:13; or Col 3:10-11. The voting data on GThom 22 and 106 do not identify the Two As One saying, but rather focus on "God's Domain & Children: Nursing" and "If You Say to This Mountain" respectively. No voting data is reported for GEgy 5b or 2Clem12:1-6.
Text Item

 Source

JS Mtg

%Red

%Pink

%Gray

%Black

W Avg

Color
Thom 22:2

107

Mark, Thomas

 86ND

0

4

44

52

0.17

Black
Thom 22:2

107

 90Son

 4

50

29

17

0.47

 Gray
Thom 106

112

Q, Mark, Thomas

90Cin

4

29

29

38

0.33

Gray
Thom 106:1-2

112

90Son

0

0

0

100

0.00

Black

 

 

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