“... The saying is not primarily about John the Baptist but about the exalted status of the ‘little one’ over against everyone belonging to the old age. Valantasis comments that this saying reasserts (after GTh 45) the sense of hierarchy within humanity, but this time between old and new dispensations. [...] Thomas’s cultural environment was permeated by the attitude summed up in the famous words of ben Sira: ‘Let us now praise famous men, and our fathers in their generations …’ (Sir. 44.1). It is notable, then, that Thomas is unabashed about the novelty of the revelation of Jesus. Kinzig’s study of the concept of newness in Christianity argues that, although the positive valuation of the ‘new’ in Christianity more broadly was never completely overshadowed by the church’s employment of ‘proofs from antiquity’, only the Marcionites and Montanists were thoroughgoing advocates of newness. To these two groups the Thomas movement should probably be added: Thomas does not offer any defence against any accusation, real or hypothetical, of novelty; the same is true of GTh 52, where there is an unqualified recommendation of Jesus over against the dead prophets of Israel. ...”