As Jesus and his disciples went through Samaria to Judea, Thomas said, "Teacher, look, there is a Samaritan with a lamb.'' Then Philip continued, "That Samaritan will kill the lamb and eat it.'' Jesus answered, "It will be not eaten while it lives.'' The disciples burst into laughter and agreed, "That's true.'' Then Jesus added, ``I hope you too find a place of Sabbath now, lest you die and be eaten.''

－－－ －－－　－－－

According to Mr. Sasagu Arai, author of the Japanese version of The Gospel of Thomas, ＜Gospel of Thomas Verse 60＞ is the theme of the previous verse, verse 59: "Jesus said, 'Look to the living one as long as you live, otherwise you might die and then try to see the living one, and you will be unable to see." expanded upon using the metaphor of 'The Samaritan and the Lamb.' The Samaritan does not eat the lamb while it is still alive. Kill it and eat it when it turns into a corpse. To avoid this, seek a place in rest. "Rest'' was a "sign of the Father,'' a state of "the Father's kingdom.'' "Place (topos)'' is said to be synonymous with "Kingdom.''

Tiberius Julius Abdes Pantera, a platoon commander in the Roman army the first cohort of archers stationed in the Phoenician colonial city, Sidon, was a Jew, as his name Abdes (Servant of God) suggests. While on a business trip to Galilee, he went to a synagogue and fell in love at first sight with Mary, a girl in the choir. The two hit it off, and as they often met in secret, Mary became pregnant. However, Mary's parents, who were from the Levite tribe who served in the temple and had a lineage connected to the royal family, did not approve of their relationship and disowned her.

Pantera was Jewish, but belonged to the Paleo-Mongoloid Ephraim tribe, which carried the Y-chromosome genes of the D lineage. For this reason, her physique and appearance were clearly different from those of Semitic Jews, and this may have been the reason why Mary's parents did not approve of their relationship.

At a loss, Mary told her cousin Elizabeth, who was also from the tribe of Levi, the whole story. Although Elizabeth married Zechariah the priest, she was unable to have a child for a long time, but recently became pregnant and was in her ninth month.

Elizabeth blessed in a loud voice, saying, ``Look! My child jumped for joy in my womb when he heard what you said. You and your child have been blessed by the Lord.''

"Oh yeah, your boyfriend was Ephraim. So if it's a boy, you'd better it to be Joshua, who carried on the will of Moses and conquered Canaan. Yes. I'll make John my son," she said, and after three months, she hid Mary.

The name Jesus is a Greek translation of Joshua, meaning "Yahweh is salvation," and the name of John, who later baptized Jesus with water in the Jordan River, is a latin translation of hebrew word Yohanan, meaning "Yahweh is gracious."

Meanwhile, Pantera, a native of Sidon who is said to have obtained Roman citizenship through military service, consulted Joseph, a Galilean carpenter with whom he had a close friendship, about the matter. Joseph was a Roman citizen by birth, but it is unclear when Pantera acquired Roman citizenship.

Joseph, a young entrepreneur who was active on the bandwagon as an architect during the reign of King Herod, an architecture enthusiast, happily takes in the pregnant Maria and accepts to be the adoptive father of the newborn child in place of Pantera, who is busy with military duties.

Joseph, a Roman citizen, travelled from Nazareth in Galilee toward Bethlehem Ephrata, south of Jerusalem, with his betrothed Mary in her ninth month for a census of the entire Roman world which had been ordered by Caesar Augustus. Every person had to return to the city from which his family came for the census. Joseph had to go the Bethlehem Ephrata because he was of David's family. (Luke 2:1-5)

Thus Jesus was born in Bethlehem Ephrata. (Luke 2:6) Incidentally it was prophesied by Prophet Micah of the Old Testament that the Messiah would appear from Bethlehem as follows. "But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times." (Mic 5:2)

Joseph registered Jesus born there as a Roman citizen, in other word his own child. Such identity of Jesus may have been passed on to the governor of Judea and his boss, the Syrian governor, and even the Roman emperor through Panthera.

However, Joseph who had finished registering the census, for some reason did not return to Galilee, but travelled with Mary and the newborn, Jesus, to Egypt. (Mat 2:14) The Gospel of Matthew refers to the following legend; King Herod, the ruler of Judea, who had heard of a prophecy that the Messiah was to be born, ordered to slaughter all male sons, under the age of two. (Mat 2:16) However, there is no record regarding Herod the Great's Massacre of the Innocents other than the Gospel of Matthew.

At that time, the population of Bethlehem was about 300 to 1000 at most. Even if there was a genocide of children, that number is seen as about 20 to 30 people. The tyrants at that time frequently carried out slaughters beyond this. Josephus and other historians may have seen it too insignificant to record. However, the number of infants massacred is said to be 14,000 in the lore of Orthodox Church and 64,000 in the hagiography of Syrian Church. (Japanese version wiki)

The Gospel of Matthew added that this is the fulfillment of the prophecy of Jeremiah Chapter 31 verse 15 in the Old Testament. Apparently the incident of Herod the Great's Massacre of the Innocents seems to have been an episode created by Matthew who had tried to depict the life of Jesus as realization of the prophecies of the Old Testament.

By the way, although David's father Jesse had a lawful wife called Nitzevet bat Adael, the name of David's mother is not in record and Psalms (Psalm 69) implies that David was a child of injustice. Perhaps Jesse had another house outside the city and kept his mistress in it. David seems to have had been born and raised under his own mother. Bethlehem was a walled city where the wealthy people lived. Some of the biblical characters that lived in the city of Bethlehem included Naomi, Boaz, Jesse, and Rehoboam. By contrast, Ephrata was a lowly farm community that grew food and raised sheep and goats for the city of Bethlehem and for the Temple. David's father and brothers lived in the City of Bethlehem but David was born and grew up in the Bethlehem Ephrata.

Joseph returned to Nazareth and finally married Mary after staying in Egypt for a few years. However, Joseph might have left Jesus in Egypt just as Jesse let David stay outside the city of Bethlehem until the son grew up. If so, the questions, such as where Jesus had been and what he had been doing before he suddenly appeared alone on the banks of the Jordan River and was baptized by John the Baptist (Mark 1:9/ Mat 3:13/ Luke 3:21), can be solved and it is no wonder that on the day of the Crucifixion, a man called Simon, who had taken his sons, Alexander and Rufus, and come to Jerusalem from all the way from Cyrene in North Africa, carried the cross to Golgotha on behalf of Jesus. (Mark 15:21/Mat 27:32/Luke 23:26)

As Roman soldiers led Jesus to the place called Golgotha to crucify him, they forced a man called Simon from Cyrene passing by to carry the cross. It is a story that appears in all three Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke. Especially the Gospel of Mark notes that Simon was the father of Alexander and Rufus. This note implies that Alexander and Rufus were prominent leaders of Christ church at the time.

Although the three gospels seem to describe Simon as a country man, Cyrene was a big city facing the Mediterranean Sea, comparable to Alexandria in those days. Given that some versions of the Gospels have translated into "farm" instead of "rural," then he might have had been an owner of ranch. In any case, Simon should have been influential person with a financial power to pilgrimage to Jerusalem with two his sons all the way from North Africa.

It is also difficult to believe that Roman soldiers forced a stranger just passing by to carry the cross instead of Jesus being executed for treason. Therefore Simon might have been appointed to carry the cross from the beginning. Otherwise, the writers of the Gospels had no way to get the informations such as his name and his place of origin.

On the other hand, Paul wrote, "Greet Rufus, whom the Lord picked out to be his very own; and also his dear mother, who has been a mother to me. (Roma 16:13)" at the end of 'Epistle to the Romans.'

Rufus seems to have become a disciple of Jesus in latter's lifetime because Paul describes him as a disciple whom the Lord picked out to be his very own. And if Rufus mentioned by Paul in his letter is same person of the son of Simon, Jesus might appointed by himself Simon to be a man to carry his cross and follow him.

Furthermore, it seems quite be unusual that Paul describes Rufus' mother "She has been a mother to me." It is impossible that Paul was a uterine brother of Rufus. Then it might mean that she was a spiritual mother who converted Paul to Christianity.

Following the Syncretism (cultural fusion of east and west) was accelerated by the east expedition of Alexander the Great in the late 4th century BC, the Mahayana Buddhism movement and the Church movement occurred coincidently in the northern part of India and around the Mediterranean coast respectively and the teachings of wisdom ('prajna paramita' in Sanskrit, 'gnosis' in Greek), which could lead people to ultimate salvation through awareness of the original Self, flourished in each of them.

A religious and vegetarian brotherhood called the Therapeutae, who had advocated poverty, celibacy, obedience, good deeds, compassion and meditation and had laid aside all worldly goods including their relatives, had lived in the area south of Alexandria near Lake Mareotis.

A book, "The Original Jesus - Buddhist Sources Of Christianity by Elmer R. Gruber & Holger Kersten," says, "They seems to have been descendants of missionaries who had been dispatched to Alexandria by King Ashoka at the era of Ptolemy II Philadelphos and Jesus too might have studied there when he was young."

It seems that Jesus had a healthy childhood because Joseph, who had no biological children, cared for him as his own son, but since Mary remarried, it seems that Jesus was seriously worried about the secret of his birth.

According to Jewish custom, Mary remarried Joseph's younger brother and had many children. The Bible regarding Jesus' younger brothers, James the Lesser, Matthew the tax collector and Simon the Zealot, who all were members of the Twelve Apostles, describes as James the son of Alphaeus, Levi the son of Alphaeus and Simon the son of Clopas. Alphaeus and Clophas both mean the second in Greek and in Aramaic respectively and these words are presumed to refer to the second husband of Mary.

The Gospels say that Jesus had four younger brothers (Matthew 13:55) and also say that Jesus had younger sisters, but the names and number of these sisters are not recorded.

These younger siblings were all the children of Mary's second husband, Alphaeus. Alphaeus named his three sons Judas, James and Simon. These names came from the Maccabean family that had successfully thrown out the Greeks, purified and re-dedicated the Temple. And he also obtained a job as a Roman tax collector for his other son, Matthew. So he seems to have had the sense of balance to survive turbulent times. Alphaeus, on behalf of James the Less, must have made full use of his royal lineage of David and Mary's Levitical lineage to obtain the role of Nazirite high priest who performed the rituals in the holy place of the temple.

As a result, Jesus, a step-child, lost his place both at home and in the community of Galilee, as if "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head." Given the situation, he may have traveled to Egypt again and joined the Therapeutae.

When Jesus returned to Jerusalem, he seems to have often visited the meeting place of the Essenes adjacent to the residence of the High Priest Caiaphas and to have started to baptize with the Holy Spirit through "dialogue" which can be said to be the type of the Zenmondo(禅問答:a cryptic dialogue between a Zen priest and his disciple) that was epidemic in China and Japan hundreds of years later. The circle should have included not only Thomas, Nathanael and Philip but also Mary Salome, the mother of John Mark, the author of the Gospel of Mark, Mary Magdalene and her elder sister Martha as well.

While Jesus often withdrew to the Mount of Olives when he visited the temple in Jerusalem, there were a resident of Mary Magdalene and her sister Martha and her brother Lazarus and another resident of Mary Salome, that is, the meeting place of the Essenes on the east side and the west side of the Mount of Olives respectively. The New Testament apocrypha Gospel of Philip implies that Mary Magdalene was the wife of Jesus. And in the Gospel Thomas, Mary Salome says, "You have climbed onto my couch and eaten from my table. (Thomas 61)"

The Gospel of Luke says that Jesus was about thirty years old when he began his public ministry. (Luke 3:23) However, the list of the twelve apostles contains the name of Judas, the son of James the Less. If this Judas was 20 years old at the time, James the Less seems to have been over forty years old. If the father, who had gone to Jerusalem with Jesus when Jesus was 12 years old, was Mary's first husband, Joseph and If Mary had remarried Alpheus after the death of Joseph and gave birth to James the Less, there should have had an age difference of at least 12 years between Jesus and his younger brother James the Less. Then, Jesus should have been in his mid fifties or above when he started his public ministry.

The primitive christianity entrusted compilation of the Gospel contained the propaganda of Jerusalem Church, which had been expected to play the role of a new umbrella organization supervising 800,000 followers of different Jewish factions in the country and the church movement by 4 million overseas gentile believers, to John, also called Mark, who was the son of Mary Salome, the owner of the meeting place of the Essenes and was the nephew of Barnabas.

When Jerusalem Church was born on the day of Pentecost, just seven weeks after the execution of Jesus, at the former meeting place of the Essenes, next to the house of Caiaphas, the High Priest, about three thousand new believers including representatives of the Gentile (non-circumcision believers) church around the Mediterranean coast and the Pharisees and the Sadducees were added to the church on that day. (Acts 2:41)

According to Papias (60–163 AD), a Greek Apostolic Father and Bishop of Hierapolis, Mark, who is said to have served as an interpreter for St. Peter, wrote what had heard from St. Peter and compiled the Gospel of Mark.

Mary Salome, who is said to be mother of Mark, is explicitly described a woman loved by Jesus in the Gospel of Thomas (Thomas 61), the Apocrypha. A young man who leaned back against Jesus at the Last Supper (John 13:23) and fled naked, leaving his garment behind when Jesus was seized in the olive grove (Mark 14:51-52) are implied to be Mark himself.

If Mark was the biological son of Jesus, it is understandable that the Gospel of Mark makes "the love of one's neighbor" the most important commandment same as "the love of God." (12:28-34) But the Messianic faith and resurrection faith, that form the basis of the Synoptic Gospels and the Gospel of John, are far removed from the teachings of Jesus in the Gospel of Thomas. However, in the sermons of Jesus in the Gospel of Thomas, we can see glimpses of the preacher Jesus' transformation into the savior.

According to the dialectic of the Gospel of John,

How then can a man possess eternal life?

When he said, "You are Huichao," Zen Master Fayan thrusted vivid Self in Huichao in front of his eyes.