Saying 5 — What Is Hidden Will Be Revealed
Thomas Saying 5's promise that what is hidden will come into the light is the Gnostic statement of inevitable revelation — the divine truth cannot remain concealed forever.
Gospel of Thomas Saying 5: 'Know what is in front of your face, and what is hidden from you will be disclosed to you. For there is nothing hidden which will not become manifest.' This saying contains two movements: the injunction to attend carefully to what is already present ('what is in front of your face') and the promise that this attention will lead to the disclosure of what is hidden. The Gnostic path is not a search for exotic, distant mysteries but an intensified attention to the ordinary — looking carefully at what is already there reveals the divine that was always already present. The promise of inevitable revelation ('nothing hidden which will not become manifest') expresses the optimistic Gnostic conviction that the divine light cannot permanently remain concealed — it will emerge eventually, in this life or through the process of the soul's return to the Pleroma.
Know what is in front of your face, and what is hidden from you will be disclosed to you. For there is nothing hidden which will not become manifest.
Philosopher Michael Polanyi's concept of tacit knowledge — the vast domain of knowing that underlies and enables all explicit knowledge — resonates with Thomas Saying 5: what is 'hidden' (tacit, background) can be made manifest through the kind of sustained, careful attention that the saying enjoins.
Nag Hammadi Library