ABSTRACT

The Gospel of Thomas with its spiritual eschatology is a timeless Platonic interpretation of the Early Christian faith. Nevertheless in its inner structure this interpretation may have been an intentional attempt to restore and re-present the realized eschatology mediated by the Holy Spirit as it was at the beginning. This was an experience that did not yet acknowledge the splitting of the Christian eschatology into the first and second coming of Jesus as the Messiah. The Thomasine group considered this early experience to be the most authentic expression of faith and tried to express it by means of a Platonic project.