English
Jesus said, ‘The single and chosen ones are favored, because you will find the kingdom, because you are from it and you will return there again.’
Interpretation
Here, several late additions to the Gospel of Thomas were piled together. Saying 49 does not contribute anything substantial that isn’t found in the following handful of sayings, and may have been one of the last interpolations. This section of the book seems to get the closest to the stereotypical ‘Gnostic’ theology of divine sparks attempting to escape the trap of their human forms in the material world, to return to the superior reality. However, the details given are too sparse to make any defintive claim on this. The Gospel of Thomas lacks the distinctive elements of the so-called gnostic sects.