Saying 88: The Messengers and the Prophets
The messengers and the prophets will come and give you what is already yours; you should give them what you have, and ask yourselves when they will come and collect what belongs to them.
Commentary
An exchange in which nothing new arrives: the prophets deliver what the hearer already owns. The last question, put back to the reader, is characteristically unanswered.
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 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…
- Prologue Prologue: The Hidden Sayings These are the hidden sayings that the living Jesus spoke and that Didymos Judas Thomas wrote down.
- Saying 103 Saying 103: Knowing Where the Robbers Will Enter Blessed is the one who knows where the robbers are going to break in: he can get up, gather his forces and…
- Saying 12 Saying 12: James the Just Asked who will lead them after he goes, Jesus sends the disciples to James the Just, for whose sake heaven and earth…
- Saying 23 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.
- Saying 6 Saying 6: On Fasting, Prayer and Almsgiving The disciples ask how to fast, pray, give alms and eat; the answer is to stop lying and to stop doing what…