COMMENTARY ON THE
GOSPEL ACCORDING TO SAINT THOMAS
Logion 65

65. He said, "There was a good man who owned a vineyard. He leased it to tenant farmers so that they might work it and he might collect the produce from them. He sent his servant so that the tenants might give him the produce of the vineyard. They seized his servant and beat him that he came nigh unto death. The servant went back and told his master. The master said, `Perhaps they did not know him.' He sent another servant. The tenants beat this one also. Then the owner sent his son and said, `Perhaps they will show respect to my son.' Because the tenants knew that it was he who was the heir to the vineyard, they seized him and killed him. Let him who has ears hear." Mk 12:1-8 (Cf. Mt 21:33-39)
And he began to speak unto them by parables. "A man planted a vineyard, and set an hedge about it, and digged a place for the winefat, and built a tower, and let it out to husbandmen, and went into a far country. And at the season he sent to the husbandmen a servant, that he might receive from the husbandmen of the fruit of the vineyard. And they caught him, and beat him, and sent him away empty. And again he sent unto them another servant; and at him they cast stones, and wounded him in the head, and sent him away shamefully handled. And again he sent another; and him they killed, and many others; beating some, and killing some. Having yet therfore one son, his wellbeloved, he sent him also last unto them, saying, `They will reverence my son.' But those husbandmen said among themselves, `This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and the inheritance shall be ours.' And they took him, and killed him, and cast him out of the vineyard."

The admonition of the Savior for him who has ears to hear to take heed occurs frequently in Thomas (8, 21, 63, 65, 96), as it does also in Mark. The word meaning 'obey' in Aramaic is an intensive form of the word meaning 'hear.' Some people are spiritually attuned to his message, these are to obey his words with that same spirit in which they are given.