The Eye of the Needle: Restoring the Lost Meaning

A Saying That Shaped Centuries

“It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle
than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.” (Matthew 19:23–30)

The Gnostics and the Sufis understood this as a warning to the wealthy: if they do not use their possessions for just causes, their accumulations will become a burden, an obstacle blocking their access to the Kingdom. In this sense, the parable was read as an invitation to detachment, to freeing oneself from the weight of possessions in order to reach the world of light.

However, for centuries this saying has been understood by the masses, and exploited by ascetics, as a condemnation of material wealth and as an implicit praise of poverty. Thus, in the collective consciousness, a veritable veneration of misery took root. Generations and centuries of people became prisoners of this double discourse: poverty exalted as a religious virtue, while in reality everyone hated it and, deep down, aspired to a better life. This gave rise to a hidden hypocrisy: the poor longed for wealth but, to console themselves or feel superior, ended up condemning it in their words.

This interpretation circulated across many religions – Christianity, Islam, and others – where poverty was sometimes presented as a passport to paradise. A tradition attributed to the Prophet Muhammad even claims that the poor will enter paradise two thousand years before the rich! Yet such an understanding is dangerous and problematic: it locks souls into passivity, it nourishes an inverted sense of superiority, and it diverts attention from the true spiritual challenge.

The Loss in Translation

If Jesus’s teaching was intended to encourage the wealthy, those attached to their possessions, to lighten themselves from the weight of worldly attachments, he could certainly have conveyed it differently, using more precise terms. Yet the metaphor – as it has come down to us – remains difficult to grasp and seems to condemn the rich in unequivocal terms.

Another difficulty lies in the image itself. Why a camel? Why not an elephant, or even a mountain, if the goal was to illustrate impossibility? In reality, it may be the translation itself that misleads us. Jesus spoke in Hebrew, Syriac, or Aramaic. His words were then translated into Greek and later into Latin. But every translation is a partial betrayal: it reduces, simplifies, and loses the secret of the prophetic word.

The term rendered as “rich” in these languages does not mean only “possessor of wealth.” It also refers to someone who is “saturated,” “full of himself,” “content with his state,” and who does not aspire to the More – the More being the Divine Mystery. Arabic preserves this nuance with the word ghaniyy, which can mean both “wealthy” and “self-satisfied.” Such an attitude may be a quality (when it expresses gratitude, for instance), but on the spiritual path it becomes a trap: a heart full of itself no longer seeks to open further.

Thus, Jesus was not condemning wealth itself, but the self-satisfied heart, the soul that does not aspire beyond what it already holds.

A Qur’anic Echo

This parable reappears in the Qur’an, in Sūrat al-Aʿrāf (7:40). There is no mention there of “the rich,” but rather of those who deny the truth (kadhabū), break ties and reject values (mujrimīn), and those who, out of arrogance, consider themselves above the divine messages (istakbarū). This closely matches the sense of being “saturated”: content with oneself, self-sufficient, with no desire for anything more. It is the same idea expressed by the verb istaghna, which appears in several Qur’anic passages (ʿAbasa 80:5; al-ʿAlaq 96:7; al-Layl 92:8).

As for the word al-jamal, it has often been taken to mean “camel.” Yet several traditional works – including al-Ṭabarī – recognize the other possible meaning: that of the thick rope, which ties directly into the reading of the parable as a call to refinement.

The Secret of the Word gaml

There is indeed a crucial nuance here. The original word used by Jesus, translated as “camel,” was gaml. This term – equivalent to the Arabic jamal – can certainly mean “camel” or “dromedary.” But in the context of wool-working – in Arabic, Hebrew, and Aramaic – gaml refers above all to a thick rope of raw wool, a coarse strand that must be patiently spun, refined, and thinned before it can pass through the eye of a needle.

This interpretation casts the parable in an entirely new light. Jesus was not speaking of an enormous animal stuck in a tiny opening, but of a coarse strand that, after patient transformation, becomes fine and delicate enough to pass through the needle’s eye.

The Meaning Restored

Thus, the parable regains its brilliance:

“The one whose heart is saturated and full of himself,
confined to a limited perception and incapable of aspiring to higher realities,
will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven
until he undertakes the inner work of refinement.
His coarse, heavy, and unrefined state of being
must be transformed into one that is fine, subtle, intelligent, and inspired.”

The teaching, therefore, is neither a condemnation of wealth
nor a naïve glorification of poverty.

It is an invitation to inner refinement –
a metaphor for the very process of spiritual transformation.

Just as the thick rope must be drawn, spun, and made fine to pass through the needle,
so too must the human heart
be purified, lightened, and opened
to become transparent to the Light.