Be Passers-By: The Shortest and Most Radical Teaching
The Gospel of Thomas, a collection of Jesus’s sayings discovered in Egypt in 1945, contains 114 teachings. Some are long. Some are paradoxical. Some require extensive commentary. And then there’s Saying 42: “Be passers-by.” That’s it. Two words. The shortest teaching in the collection. It might also be the most radical. What Does It Mean? The Coptic original can be translated literally as “Become yourselves, passing by.” Other scholars render it “Come into being as you pass away.” ...