Evangelho de Tomé - Logion 7

Miroshnikov  

As Dieter Lührmann has shown, Didymus the Blind was familiar with a saying similar to the one we have in Gos. Thom. 7. Below is the relevant section from his commentary on Ps 43/44:12. The Greek words in bold face   indicate the vocabulary of the lion saying disseminated throughout the passage. The italicized clauses demonstrate that Didymus’ version of the saying employs a chiastic structure:

Therefore, if the man that preserves what is according to God  ’s image and [likeness, having become a teacher like Jesus], eats a wild man by means of education [and consumes him insofar as he is a lion, this one who was eaten] by the teacher and became his food will not be a lion. Therefore, he is blessed and he is being blessed not because he is a lion, but because he became a man. But if a reasonable man who was led by reason was eaten by some savage-hearted wild man or by an evil force, he becomes a lion and such a man is wretched. For “Woe to the man whom a lion will eat.”

Even though Didymus quotes only one verse of the saying and paraphrases the rest, we can still easily see that it has almost the same structure as Gos. Thom. 7. The following table contrasts Didymus’ version of the saying with Didymus’ interpretation of it:

The lion saying according Didymus Didymus’ exegesis   of the lion saying

 

Blessed is the lion

Whom a man will eat

And the lion will become a man.

And wretched is the man

Whom a lion will eat

And the man will become a lion.

 

Blessed is the wild man

Whose teacher is a reasonable man

For he is no longer wild.

And wretched is the reasonable man

Whose teacher is a wild man

For he is no longer reasonable.

The only major difference between the two versions of the saying (viz., that in the nhc 11 and that in Didymus) is that, according to Didymus, the man who is eaten by the lion becomes a lion.12 How, then, did this discrepancy come about?