It’s a good question. In part it’s difficult to answer because it isn’t clear which sayings or parts of which sayings in Thomas are original vs added later on. So a saying unique to it about if you have enough money to lend it at interest it would be better to give it away without expecting it back could be from a different time period from this one here.
But my guess would be this is about alms/tithes and charity to the church.
First, it’s paired with the obligations of fasting and prayer which has a religious context.
Second, you see Paul arguing in 1 Cor 9 with the group in Corinth about his rights to make money from them, indicating they had a contrary perspective. The people in Corinth also had the view “everything is permissible for me” similar to other attitudes in Thomas and there’s actually a fair bit of overlap in the letters to Corinth and z Thomas beyond the scope of this comment.
Finally, the notion the church could collect money appears to be one of the later edits to canon.
You see in all the Synoptics Jesus tells the apostles they can’t carry a purse when spreading the word which would have prevented monetary collections. A similar saying about only accepting food and shelter is found in Thomas. But in Luke at the Last Supper Jesus explicitly reversed this, basically saying “remember when I said don’t carry a purse? Well carry one now.”
Thing is, that part is absent from Marcion’s version of Luke which is probably the earliest surviving copy.
So there’s a fair bit of supporting evidence that a historical Jesus didn’t look kindly on collecting money in a religious context and this was changed later on (it also makes sense the surviving version of the tradition would have been the one to change this).
And given the Gospel of Thomas elsewhere has a unique saying about giving money away if you have enough to be lending it at interest, I suspect in this case about charity it’s a narrow scope specifically about the notion of obligation to give to charity for everyone including the poor as opposed to the merits of giving away money for the rich who are just going to die with a bunch leftover (the topic of saying 63 about an old man who kept saving up for the future and then just died).
Huh? Is this about obligatory alms/tithes or is it about any kind of help to others, or both?
It’s a good question. In part it’s difficult to answer because it isn’t clear which sayings or parts of which sayings in Thomas are original vs added later on. So a saying unique to it about if you have enough money to lend it at interest it would be better to give it away without expecting it back could be from a different time period from this one here.
But my guess would be this is about alms/tithes and charity to the church.
First, it’s paired with the obligations of fasting and prayer which has a religious context.
Second, you see Paul arguing in 1 Cor 9 with the group in Corinth about his rights to make money from them, indicating they had a contrary perspective. The people in Corinth also had the view “everything is permissible for me” similar to other attitudes in Thomas and there’s actually a fair bit of overlap in the letters to Corinth and z Thomas beyond the scope of this comment.
Finally, the notion the church could collect money appears to be one of the later edits to canon.
You see in all the Synoptics Jesus tells the apostles they can’t carry a purse when spreading the word which would have prevented monetary collections. A similar saying about only accepting food and shelter is found in Thomas. But in Luke at the Last Supper Jesus explicitly reversed this, basically saying “remember when I said don’t carry a purse? Well carry one now.”
Thing is, that part is absent from Marcion’s version of Luke which is probably the earliest surviving copy.
So there’s a fair bit of supporting evidence that a historical Jesus didn’t look kindly on collecting money in a religious context and this was changed later on (it also makes sense the surviving version of the tradition would have been the one to change this).
And given the Gospel of Thomas elsewhere has a unique saying about giving money away if you have enough to be lending it at interest, I suspect in this case about charity it’s a narrow scope specifically about the notion of obligation to give to charity for everyone including the poor as opposed to the merits of giving away money for the rich who are just going to die with a bunch leftover (the topic of saying 63 about an old man who kept saving up for the future and then just died).