Metalogos The Gospels of Thomas & Philip & Truth

sayings are substantially genuine,... at once new
and after the manner of our Lord's earlier
teaching,... which it is difficult to regard as the
creation of subapostolic times,... traditions based
on the recollections of those who had heard the
Lord.
Gilles Quispel, ‘The Gospel of Thomas and
the New Testament’ (lecture held at Oxford, 18 Sept
1957): Unknown sayings of Jesus, taken from a
Jewish-Christian Gospel originally written in
Aramaic, have come to light. The Gospel of
Thomas ... is nothing else than the Gospel used
by the descendants of the primitive community of
Jerusalem, who seem to have lived on in Palestine
almost completely isolated from the main stream
of Gentile Christian tradition.... There is, as far as I
can see, nothing to show that this is not good
tradition.... I do not see why these ... sayings of
Jesus that are contained in the Gospel of Thomas
and by their wording, their style and their content
betray their Palestinian origin, should not have the
same historical value as the words of Jesus
contained in our four canonical Gospels. They may
have been transmitted in a Palestinian milieu quite
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