Saying 23: One From a Thousand
I will choose you, one from a thousand and two from ten thousand, and they will stand as a single one.
Commentary
Election in Thomas is vanishingly narrow, and the arithmetic is deliberately strange: the chosen do not form a group of three but resolve into one.
Parallels
This saying has no close parallel in the canonical gospels. Roughly half of the Gospel of Thomas is material of this kind, found nowhere else in the early Christian record.
Sayings on the same themes
- Saying 49 Saying 49: Blessed Are the Solitary Blessed are the solitary and the chosen, for you will find the kingdom; you came from it, and you will go back…
- Saying 21 Saying 21: Children in a Field Not Theirs Mary asks what the disciples are like; they are like children living in a field that is not theirs, who give it…
- Saying 37 Saying 37: When You Strip Without Shame Asked when he will appear to them, Jesus answers: when you undress without being ashamed, and trample your clothes underfoot like little…
- Saying 55 Saying 55: Hating Father and Mother Whoever does not hate father and mother cannot be my disciple; whoever does not hate brothers and sisters and carry the cross…
- Saying 13 Saying 13: Compare Me to Something Peter says Jesus is like a righteous messenger, Matthew like a wise philosopher; Thomas says his mouth cannot say what Jesus is…
- Saying 46 Saying 46: Greater Than John the Baptist From Adam to John the Baptist no one born of women is so far above John that his eyes should not be…