Saying 74: Many Around the Well
Lord, there are many gathered around the drinking trough, but there is nothing in the well.
Commentary
Spoken by an unnamed voice rather than Jesus, and quoted by the third-century writer Celsus. A crowd at an empty source is as sharp an image of failed religion as Thomas produces.
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.
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