🕯️ The Gospel They Couldn’t Burn
Why the Gospel of Thomas Was Buried, Not Because It Was False—But Because It Was Free
There are four gospels in your pew.
Bound in leather. Read from pulpits.
Sanitized by centuries of politics, councils, and commentary.
They speak in stories—of mangers and miracles, of betrayal and resurrection.
They tell you what to believe, and how not to burn in hell.
But there was another gospel.
Not a story, but a whisper.
Not a creed, but a mirror.
Not meant to be explained—only encountered.
✨ The Gospel of Thomas begins with a warning:
“Whoever discovers the interpretation of these sayings will not taste death.”
No virgin birth.
No Passion.
No crucifixion, no tomb.
Only the radical idea that the Kingdom of God is not somewhere else, not later, not earned—
but already here.
And always has been.
“The Kingdom is inside you, and it is outside you.”
And that, dear reader, was the problem.
☩ The Trouble With Mystics
When the early Church began to define itself, it stood at a forked path.
Would it follow the silent road of the desert—
inner prayer, mystery, and union with God through stillness?
Or would it become a fortress—
defended by dogma, policed by priests, and sealed with an emperor’s seal?
The truth?
Both paths survived.
The mystics went East.
The managers went West.
In the East, the Orthodox Church protected the mystical core.
Hesychasm. The Jesus Prayer. Theosis. The nous of the heart.
This was not metaphor. It was method.
They didn’t deny the Kingdom was within.
They wrote it in smoke across icon screens.
They prayed it in caves with blistered knees.
They became it—slowly, painfully, gloriously.
Ask a monk on Mount Athos where the Kingdom is, and he will point to his chest.
“Enter your cell,” said Abba Moses,
“and your cell will teach you everything.”
Thomas was speaking the same truth.
But he didn’t couch it in theological armor.
He gave it straight.
Unfiltered.
Uncomfortably direct.
📜 The Gospel That Wouldn't Obey
The Council of Nicaea in 325 wasn’t a Bible study group.
It was a political consolidation.
An empire needed a God it could manage.
A religion it could codify, license, and distribute.
And Thomas?
Thomas gave them Jesus the mirror-holder.
Jesus the Zen master.
Jesus the koan.
“If you bring forth what is within you,
what you bring forth will save you.
If you do not bring forth what is within you,
what you do not bring forth will destroy you.”
That is not doctrine.
That is detonation.
☸️ “But This Sounds Like Buddhism…”
Exactly.
Because truth doesn’t belong to culture.
Mystics across all traditions eventually start whispering the same impossible message:
You are not who you think you are.
Die before you die.
Strip away everything false, and you will find what cannot die.
Thomas sounds like Buddhism, not because it borrowed from it—
but because wisdom converges when the ego gets quiet.
This is not East versus West.
This is Empire versus Essence.
🏺 Why It Was Buried
In 1945, a jar was unearthed in Nag Hammadi, Egypt.
Inside: scrolls sealed since the 4th century.
Among them, the Gospel of Thomas.
It hadn’t been lost.
It had been hidden.
Buried—perhaps by monks who understood its danger,
and its beauty.
Not hidden because it was false.
Hidden because it was free.
💬 So Why Was It Left Out?
Because it offered direct access to the Divine.
Because it dared to bypass the clergy, the councils, the creeds.
Because it wasn’t about believing the right things.
It was about becoming the real you.
Not the social self.
Not the religious self.
Not the curated self.
The you that was never separate to begin with.
🜂 And Now?
Now it’s found you.
If you’ve read this far, it means the seed is already stirring.
This gospel was not written for information.
It was written for ignition.
Let it offend you.
Let it confuse you.
Let it pierce your Sunday-school comfort and light a fire in your ribs.
You are not being taught.
You are being remembered.
🧘♂️ Practice for the Inner Altar:
Choose one saying from Thomas.
Don’t analyze it.
Sit with it.
Let it echo.
When the mind tries to explain it, return to silence.
The answer will not come from thought.
It will come from who you become by sitting with the question.
– Virgin Monk Boy
Dusty mystic.
Excommunicated librarian.
Friend of the uncanonized.
Before you vanish back into the illusion—smash that LIKE or SHARE button like it’s a temple gong. One tiny click, one cosmic ripple. That’s how we spread the heresy of hope and grow this little corner of soul-awakening satire.
And if this jolt stirred something in your chest cavity, consider upgrading to a paid subscription. It keeps the scrolls coming, the incense burning, and the heretic coffee hot. ☕️💚
(Yes, you can literally buy me a coffee. Enlightenment isn’t free, darling.)
I love the Gospel of Thomas and you expounded this love for great reasons. There’s something about its simple nature that makes it complex in visualization and heart. Truly, I love it.
Thomas’s early Christianity, like early Buddhism, kept it beautifully simple — what we are searching for is already with us. Yes, Jesus was a Zen master! Lots of his parables are like koans. Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh compared Buddhism & Christianity in his book, Living Buddha, Living Christ.