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The Gospel of Thomas names only one people and one region in all its sayings: a Samaritan on his way to Judea. Among the parables of Jesus, only Luke's Good Samaritan has details like these, so the Samaritan in Thomas may come from Luke's story.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Luke 10:33
New Testament
29 But the expert, wanting to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” 30 Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him up, and went off, leaving him half dead. 31 Now by chance a priest was going down that road, but when he saw the injured man, he passed by on the other side. 32 So too a Levite, when he came up to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan who was traveling came to where the injured man was, and when he saw him, he felt compassion for him. 34 He went up to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring olive oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. 35 The next day he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take care of him, and whatever else you spend, I will repay you when I come back this way.’
Gospel of Thomas 1:60
Nag Hammadi
59 Jesus said, “Look upon the Living One while you are alive, so that you do not die and then seek to see him, and you will not be able to see.” 60 They saw a Samaritan carrying a lamb on his way to Judea. He said to his disciples, “Why is that man carrying the lamb?” They said to him, “So that he may kill it and eat it.” He said to them, “While it is alive, he will not eat it, but only when he has killed it and it has become a corpse.” They said, “Otherwise he cannot do it.” He said to them, “So also with you: seek for yourselves a place of rest, lest you become a corpse and be eaten.” 61 Jesus said, “Two will rest on a couch; one will die, one will live.” Salome said, “Who are you, man? As if from One, you have ascended onto my couch and eaten at my table.” Jesus said, “I am he who comes from the one who is whole. I was given from my Father’s things.” Salome said, “I am your disciple.” Jesus said, “For this reason I say, if one is whole, he will be filled with light; but if he is divided, he will be filled with darkness.”
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Notes and References
“... As already noted, it is unclear whether it is Jesus or the Samaritan going into Judaea here, though if the reconstruction ‘He saw’ is correct, Jesus is more likely to be the one going. Either way, the setting places Jesus, the disciples and the Samaritan in Samaria, though near the border of Judaea. The scene is perhaps a reminiscence of the parable of the Good Samaritan (Lk. 10.30–35), in which the man going from Jerusalem to Jericho is helped by a Samaritan. ‘Samaritan’ is the only indication of ethnicity in Thomas and ‘Judaea’ is the only clear place name in Thomas, and the parable of the Good Samaritan is the only parable to have any indications of ethnicity and geography among the canonical parables. (In the Lukan parable, the geography is ‘from Jerusalem to Jericho’, rather than ‘into Judaea’.) ...”
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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