Gospel of Thomas, Saying 37: Seeing Jesus His disciples said, "When will you appear to us?

Saying 37: Seeing Jesus His disciples said, "When will you appear to us? When will we see you?" Jesus said, "When you strip naked without being ashamed, and throw your clothes on the ground and stomp on them as little children would, then you will see the Son of the Living One and won't be afraid."

7/26/20264 min read

When will you appear to us? When will we see you?

This is one of the most symbolic sayings in the Gospel of Thomas, and it has produced two very different readings. A minority of scholars, April DeConick among them, have suggested it echoes an actual liturgical memory: early Christian catechumens were stripped naked before baptism, so the saying could preserve a ritual image rather than a purely metaphorical one. The majority reading, and the one that fits Thomas's theology as a whole, treats the nakedness as symbolic throughout, not a ritual to perform but an inner state to recover: the shedding of false identity, social masks, and ego that conceal one's true nature.

"His disciples said, 'When will you appear to us? When will we see you?'"

The disciples are asking for an outward appearance, a future revelation. As in many Thomas sayings, Jesus redirects their attention from an external event to an inner transformation already available to them.

"When you strip naked without being ashamed..."

Nakedness here recalls the primordial human condition before shame and division entered consciousness. Genesis 2:25 describes exactly this state: "And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed." Shame enters only after the fall into the knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 3:7-10), a moment Gnostic-influenced readers understood not just historically but as a description of every soul's descent into self-division.

Job's language points the same direction: "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return" (Job 1:21), birth and death bracketing a life spent, in between, wrapped in coverings.

In Thomas, nakedness can represent:

freedom from false identity
transparency before God
return to one's authentic, undivided nature

It is an inner state, not primarily a physical one.

"...and throw your clothes on the ground and stomp on them as little children would..."

This image has a close parallel outside Thomas. Clement of Alexandria, in the Stromata (III.13), preserves a saying from the Gospel of the Egyptians in which Jesus tells Salome that death will persist "as long as women bear children," and that his mission will be accomplished "when you trample on the garment of shame." That phrase, the garment of shame, is likely the same tradition Thomas is drawing on here. Clothing is not simply a metaphor for social identity in a general sense; it is specifically the covering assumed after the fall, the layer of shame, mortality, and self-concealment wrapped around the original, undivided self.

Read this way, clothing in the saying stands for:

the ego's constructed identity
status, reputation, and religious labels
the "garment of shame" inherited from the fall

To trample it is to refuse to be ruled by it any longer.

The reference to little children reinforces this. Compare Thomas 22, where Jesus tells his disciples that entering the kingdom requires making "the two one," so that eye replaces eye and hand replaces hand, restoring an undivided, childlike wholeness in place of a fractured adult self. Also relevant is Mark 10:15 / Luke 18:17: "Whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it." Children, in this tradition, are less attached to the masks adults spend a lifetime constructing.

There's also a curious, easily overlooked echo in Mark 14:51-52, where a young man flees the arrest of Jesus wearing only a linen cloth, and when seized, "he left the linen cloth and ran away naked." Whether or not the evangelist intended any symbolic weight, later readers have long noted the image: shedding the garment rather than being bound by it.

"...then you'll see the Son of the Living One..."

In Thomas, "seeing" typically means recognition rather than ordinary sight. The "Son of the Living One" can be understood as Christ, the living divine reality, or the true image of God revealed in Jesus. Paul gestures at something similar in 2 Corinthians 3:18, beholding "with unveiled face" and being transformed into the same image, and in Colossians 3:9-10, where believers "have put off the old self... and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator." The logic runs the same direction in both texts: one cannot truly perceive Christ while still identified with the covering.

"...and won't be afraid."

Fear arises from attachment to the false self, its image, possessions, beliefs, standing. When those coverings fall away, there is nothing left to defend. 1 John 4:18 states this almost as a formula: "There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear... for fear has to do with punishment." The person stands in truth rather than illusion, and fear loses its foundation.

A concise summary

This saying teaches that we see Christ not by waiting for an outward appearance but by removing the false identities we wear, the "garment of shame" inherited since Eden. When we become inwardly transparent, like an unashamed child, free from ego, pretense, and social masks, we recognize the living Christ and become free from fear.

info@churchofwambo.org

Cookie Policy
Disclaimer