English
He said, ‘Lord, many people are around the well, but no one is in the well.’
Interpretation
Jesus stresses that the work his disciples are being prepared for is difficult or large-scale, but that there may not be enough of them due to the strict requirements to become such a disciple. The simplicity of the saying, its lack of introspective theology, puts it on the far early end of the book’s development.
Parallels
Origen
Against Celsus 8.15 ‘How does it come that, while so many go about the well, no one goes down into it? Why are you afraid when you have gone so far on the way?’