The Book of Thomas the Contender, also known more simply as the Book of Thomas (though this must not be confused with the quite different Gospel of Thomas), is one of the books of the New Testament apocrypha. The title derives from the first line of text which actually gives two seperate titles - The Book of Thomas, and The Contender writing to the Perfect. The Gospel of Thomas, completely preserved in a papyrus Coptic manuscript discovered in 1945 at Nag Hammadi, Egypt, is a list of 114 sayings attributed to Jesus. ... In the process of determining the Biblical canon, a large number of works were excluded from the New Testament. ...

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.
• Alternately, 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 Matthaias, this work may actually be the lost Gospel of Matthias.

The content of the work is quite gnostic in style, but lacks the gnostic cosmology, and is more likely a text resulting from Judao-Hellenic philosophy, having been adjusted for a christian audience. It is singularly concerned with what it sees as the evils of sexuality, and the benefit of celibacy. Gnosticism is a blanket term for various religions and sects most prominent in the first few centuries A.D. General characteristics The word gnosticism comes from the Greek word for knowledge, gnosis (γνῶσις), referring to the idea that there is special, hidden mysticism (esoteric knowledge) that only a few possess. ...

Addressing Thomas as his own twin brother, Jesus proceeds to expound on the theme of mortality, and in particular on sexuality. Jesus goes on to describe how celibacy offers the route to salvation, and how sexual passion is a fire which causes illusion, and imprisonment in a state of lust. Finally it ends with a description of the penalty for mocking the celibate, and 12 cries of woe about the lust burning within Thomas.

References

• Online text for the Book of Thomas the Contender (http://jdt.unl.edu/thomasbook.htm)