The Book of Thomas the Contender, also known more simply as the Book of Thomas (not to be confused with the Gospel of Thomas

Gospel of Thomas

The Gospel According to Thomas, commonly shortened to the Gospel of Thomas, is a well preserved early Christian, non-canonical sayings-gospel discovered near Nag Hammadi, Egypt, in December 1945, in one of a group of books known as the Nag Hammadi library...

), is one of the books of the New Testament apocrypha

New Testament apocrypha

The New Testament apocrypha are a number of writings by early Christians that claim to be accounts of Jesus and his teachings, the nature of God, or the teachings of his apostles and of their lives. These writings often have links with books regarded as "canonical"...

 represented in the Nag Hammadi library

Nag Hammadi library

The Nag Hammadi library is a collection of early Christian Gnostic texts discovered near the Upper Egyptian town of Nag Hammadi in 1945. That year, twelve leather-bound papyrus codices buried in a sealed jar were found by a local peasant named Mohammed Ali Samman...

 (CG II

Nag Hammadi Codex II

Nag Hammadi Codex II is a papyrus codex with a collection of early Christian Gnostic texts in Coptic . The manuscript has survived in nearly perfect condition. The codex is dated to the 4th century...

), a cache of Gnostic gospels secreted in the Egyptian desert. The title derives from the first line of text.

"The secret words that the savior spoke to Judas Thomas which I, even I, Mathaias, wrote down, while I was walking, listening to them speak with one another."

The colophon

Colophon (publishing)

In publishing, a colophon is either:* A brief description of publication or production notes relevant to the edition, in modern books usually located at the reverse of the title page, but can also sometimes be located at the end of the book, or...

 appended to the text gives the title The Contender writing to the Perfect.

There are two competing theories as to the composition of the text:

• Firstly, since it is only the initial 3/5 which constitute dialogue, with the remainder being a monologue, it may have originally been two works, one of dialogue, one of monologue.
• Alternatively, and not in the least because of the two titles, the work is thought to have originated as a letter, with a name of the form Epistle of the Contender, written by a Jew who upheld Hellenic philosophy. The text is thought to have later been given a Christian setting and converted into a dialogue, in a similar manner to other works.

An additional consideration is that, since the scribe writing the text is named as Matthias

Saint Matthias

Matthias , according to the Acts of the Apostles, was the apostle chosen by the remaining eleven apostles to replace Judas Iscariot following Judas' betrayal of Jesus and his suicide.-Biography:...

, this work may actually be the lost Gospel of Matthias

Gospel of Matthias

The Gospel of Matthias is a lost text from the New Testament apocrypha, ascribed to Matthias, the apostle chosen by lots to replace Judas Iscariot . The content has been surmised from various descriptions of it in ancient works by church fathers . There is too little evidence to decide whether a...

. The dialogue can also be read as an internal conversation between Jesus and his lower self, Judas Thomas, the twin (contender for supremacy of the soul). The New Testament's "doubting" Thomas and Judas "the betrayer" could also be symbolic and descriptive of this internal battle between the Christ Self and ego identity.

The content of this work is quite hyperbolic and gnostic in style, in the sense of imparting a private, arcane knowledge related to good versus evil, and while it lacks references to the elaborate gnostic cosmology, its gnostic allusions to the pleroma and light versus fire clearly point to its origins.

Then the savior continued and said, "O unsearchable love of the light! O bitterness of the fire that blazes in the bodies of men and in their marrow, kindling in them night and day, and burning the limbs of men and making their minds become drunk and their souls become deranged... Woe to you, captives, for you are bound in caverns! You laugh! In mad laughter you rejoice! You neither realize your perdition, nor do you reflect on your circumstances, nor have you understood that you dwell in darkness and death! On the contrary, you are drunk with the fire and full of bitterness. Your mind is deranged on account of the burning that is in you, and sweet to you are the poison and the blows of your enemies! And the darkness rose for you like the light, for you surrendered your freedom for servitude! You darkened your hearts and surrendered your thoughts to folly, and you filled your thoughts with the smoke of the fire that is in you! (Book of Thomas the Contender)

The gnostic content in the texts of the Nag Hammadi

Nag Hammadi library

The Nag Hammadi library is a collection of early Christian Gnostic texts discovered near the Upper Egyptian town of Nag Hammadi in 1945. That year, twelve leather-bound papyrus codices buried in a sealed jar were found by a local peasant named Mohammed Ali Samman...

 trove can be argued to be often identical to Jesus' conceptual content, but the metaphorical language and symbolism are strikingly different. "The Book of Thomas the Contender" and its guidance in overcoming ego "lusts/attachments" differs markedly with Jesus' gentler, more practical psychological approach in the Four Canonical Gospels and The Gospel of Thomas.