Saying 114: Simon Peter and Mary
Simon Peter says Mary should leave, because women are not worthy of life. Jesus answers that he will guide her so that she becomes male, since every woman who makes herself male will enter the kingdom of heaven.
Commentary
The most disputed saying in the book, and widely thought to be a late addition — it is absent from the Greek fragments and sits oddly after saying 113’s natural conclusion. Read against saying 22, where male and female are both dissolved into one, “becoming male” may mean entering the undivided state rather than adopting a gender; read plainly, it is straightforwardly androcentric. Both readings are defended in the scholarship, and the Gospel of Mary preserves a very similar clash between Peter and Mary.
Parallels
Gospel of Thomas 22; Gospel of Mary
Sayings on the same themes
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