Agrapha

A collection of sayings ascribed to Jesus Christ, but not found in the Bible

AGRAPHA.—See Sayings.

AGRAPHA.—See Unwritten Sayings.

Sayings (not discourses) attributed to Our Lord that have come down to us through channels outside the canonical Gospels, one, for instance, in Acts, 20:35: "Remember the word of the Lord Jesus, how He said: It is a more blessed thing to give, rather than to receive."

A name first used, in 1776, by J.G. Körner, for the Sayings of Jesus that have come down to us outside the canonical Gospels. After Alfred Resch had chosen the expression, as the title for his learned work on these Sayings (1889), its technical meaning was generally accepted. We shall consider, first, the limits of the Agrapha; secondly, the criteria of their genuineness; thirdly, the list of those that are probably authentic. LIMITSThe Agrapha must satisfy three conditions: they must be Sayings, not discourses; they must be Sayings of Jesus; they must not be contained in the canonical Gospels. (a) Being mere Sayings, and not discourses, the Agrapha do not embrace the lengthy sections ascribed to Jesus in the "Didascalia" and the "Pistis Sophia." These works contain also some brief quotations of alleged words of Jesus, though they may have to be excluded from the Sayings for other reasons. Such seems to be the Saying in "Didasc. Syr." II, 8 (ed. Lagarde, p. 14); "A man is unapproved, if he be untempted."(b) Being Sayings of Jesus, the Agrapha do not embrace: (1) The Sayings contained in religious romances, such as we find in the apocryphal Gospels, the apocryphal Acts, or the Letter of Christ to Abgar (Eus. Hist. Eccl., I, 13). (2) Scripture passages ascribed to Jesus by a mere oversight. Thus "Didasc. Apost. Syr." (ed. Lagarde, p. 11, line 12) assigns to the Lord the words of Prov., xv, 1 (Sept.), "Wrath destroyeth even wise men". (3) The expressions attributed to Jesus by the mistake of transcribers. The Epistle of Barnabas, iv, 9, reads: "As the son of God says, Let us resist all iniquity, and hold it in hatred." But this is merely a rendering of a mistake of the Latin scribe who wrote "sicut dicit filius Dei", instead of "sicut decet filios Dei", the true rendering of the Greek òs prépei uìoîs Theoû. (4) The Sayings attributed to Jesus by mere conjecture. Resch has put forth the conjecture that the words of Clem. Alex. Strom. I, 8, 41, "These are they who ply their looms and weave nothing, saith the Scripture", refer to a Saying of Jesus, though there is no solid foundation for this belief.(c) Coming down to us through channels outside the canonical Gospels, the Agrapha do not comprise: (1) Mere parallel forms, or amplifications, or, again, combinations of Sayings contained in the canonical Gospels. Thus we find a combination of Matt., vi, 19; x, 9; Luke, xii, 33, in Ephr. Syr. Test. (opp. Græce, ed. Assemani, II, 232): "For I heard the Good Teacher in the divine gospels saying to his disciples, Get you nothing on earth." (2) Homiletical paragraphs of Jesus, thoughts given by ancient writers. Thus Hippolytus (Demonstr. adv. Judæos, VII) paraphrases Ps. lxviii (lxix), 26: "Whence he saith, Let their temple, Father, be desolate." CRITERIA OF GENUINENESSThe genuineness of the Agrapha may be inferred partly from external and partly from internal evidence.(a) External Evidence.–First determine the independent source or sources by which any Saying in question has been preserved, and then see whether the earliest authority for the Saying is of such date and character than it might reasonably have had access to extra­canonical tradition. For Papias and Justin Martyr such access may be admitted, but hardly for a writer of the fourth century. These are extreme cases; the main difficulty is concerned with the intermediate writers.(b) Internal Evidence.–The next question is, whether the Saying under consideration is consistent with the thought and spirit of Jesus as manifested in the canonical gospels. If a negative conclusion be reached in this investigation, the proof must be completed by finding a fair explanation of the rise of the Saying. LIST OF AUTHENTIC AGRAPHAThe sources from which the authentic Agrapha may be gathered are: (a) the New Testament and the New Testament manuscripts; (b) the Apocryphal tradition; (c) the patristic citations; and (d) the so­called "Oxyrhynchus Logia" of Jesus. Agrapha contained in Jewish or Mohammedan sources may be curious, but they are hardly authentic. Since the criticism of the Agrapha is in most cases difficult, and often unsatisfactory, frequent disagreement in the critical results must be expected as a matter of course. The following Agrapha are probably genuine sayings of Jesus.(a) In the New Testament and the New Testament manuscripts: In Codices D and Phi , and in some versions of Matt., xx, 28, "But ye seek from the small to increase, and from the greater to be less." In Codex D of Luke, vi, 4: "On the same day, seeing one working on the Sabbath, he said to him: Man, if thou knowest what thou doest, blessed art thou; but if thou knowest not, thou art accursed and a transgressor of the Law." In Acts, xx, 35, "Remember the word of the Lord Jesus, how he said: It is a more blessed thing to give, rather than to receive."(b) In apocryphal tradition: In the Gospel according to the Hebrews (Jerome, Ezech., xviii, 7): "In the Gospel which the Nazarenes are accustomed to read, that according to the Hebrews, there is put among the greatest crimes he who shall have grieved the spirit of his brother." In the same Gospel (Jerome, Eph., v, 3 sq.): "In the Hebrew Gospel too we read of the Lord saying to the disciples: And never, said he, rejoice, except when you have looked upon your brother in love." In Apostolic Church­Order, 26: "For he said to us before, when he was teaching: That which is weak shall be saved through that which is strong." In "Acta Philippi", 34: "For the Lord said to me: Except ye make the lower into the upper and the left into the right, ye shall not enter into my kingdom."(c) In patristic citations: Justin Martyr, Dial. 47: "Wherefore also our Lord Jesus Christ said, In whatsoever things I apprehend you, in those I shall judge you." Clement of Alexandria, Strom. I, 24, 158: "For ask, he says for the great things, and the small shall be added to you." Clement of Alexandria, Strom. I, 28, 177: "Rightly therefore the Scripture also in its desire to make us such dialecticians, exhorts us: Be approved moneychangers, disapproving some things, but holding fast that which is good." Clement of Alexandria, Strom. V, 10, 64: "For not grudgingly, he saith, did the Lord declare in a certain gospel: My mystery is for me and for the sons of my house." Origen, Homil. in Jer., XX, 3: "But the Saviour himself saith: He who is near me is near the fire; he who is far from me, is far from the kingdom."(d) In the Oxyrhynchus Logia: The first Logion is part of Luke, vi, 42; of the fourth, only the word "poverty" is left; the eighth, too, is badly mutilated. The text of the other Logia is in a more satisfactory condition. Second Logion: "Jesus saith, Except you fast to the world, you shall in no wise find the kingdom of God." Third Logion: "Jesus saith, I stood in the midst of the world, and in the flesh was I seen of them, and I found all men drunken, and none found I athirst among them, and my soul grieved over the sons of men, because they are blind in their heart, and see not." Fifth Logion: "Jesus saith, Wherever there are two, they are not without God; and wherever there is one alone, I say I am with him. Raise the stone and there thou shalt find me; cleave the wood, and there am I." Sixth Logion: "Jesus saith, A prophet is not acceptable in his own country, neither doth a physician work cures upon them that know him." Seventh Logion: "Jesus saith, A city built upon the top of a hill and stablished can neither fall nor be hid." Eighth Logion: "Jesus saith, Thou hearest with one ear . . ." Resch’s contention that seventy­five Agrapha are probably genuine Sayings of Jesus harmonizes with the assumption that all spring from the same source, but does not commend itself to the judgment of other scholars.-----------------------------------ROPES in HAST., Dict. of the Bible (New York, 1905); Sprüche Jesu, Texte und Untersuch., XIV, 2 (Leipzig, 1896); RESCH, Agrapha, Texte und Untersuch., VI (Leipzig, 1889); GRENFELL and HUNT, LOGIA IESOU, (Egypt Expl. Fund, London, 1897); LOCK AND S ANDAY, Sayings of Jesus (Oxford, 1897); NESTLER, N. T. supplementum (Leipzig, 1896). Complete bibliographies will be found in most of the foregoing works.A.J. MAASTranscribed by WGKofronWith thanks to St. Mary’s Church, Akron, Ohio The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume ICopyright © 1907 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat, March 1, 1907. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., CensorImprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York

ag´ra-fa (ἄγραφα, ágrapha).

1. The Term and Its History

The word ágraphos of which agrapha is the neuter plural is met with in classical Greek and in Greek papyri in its primary sense of “unwritten,” “unrecorded.” In early Christian literature, especially in the writings of Clement of Alexandria, it was used of oral tradition; and in this sense it was revived by Koerner in a Leipzig Program issued in 1776 under the title De sermonibus Christi agraphois. For some time it was restricted to sayings of Christ not recorded in the Gospels and believed to have reached the sources in which they are found by means of oral tradition. As however graphḗ, the noun with which agrapha is connected, can have not only the general meaning “writing,” but the special meaning “Scripture,” the, adjective could signify not only “oral” but also uncanonical or “non-canonical”; and it was employed by Resch in the latter sense in the 1st edition of his great work on the subject which appeared in German in 1889 under the title, Agrapha: Extra-canonical Gospel Fragments. The term was now also extended so as to include narratives as well as sayings. In the second edition (also in German) it is further widened so as to embrace all extra-canonical sayings or passages connected with the Bible. The new title runs: Agrapha: Extra-canonical Fragments of Scripture; and the volume contains a first collection of Old Testament agrapha. The term is still however used most frequently of non-canonical sayings ascribed to Jesus, and to the consideration of these this article will mainly be devoted.

2. Extent of Material

Of the 361 agrapha and apocrypha given by Resch about 160 are directly ascribed to Christ. About 30 others can be added from Christian and Jewish sources and about 80 sayings found in Muhammadan literature (Expository Times, V, 59, 107, 177 f, 503 f, 561, etc.). The last-mentioned group, although not entirely without interest, may largely be disregarded as it is highly improbable that it represents early tradition. The others come from a variety of sources: the New Testament outside of the Gospels, Gospel manuscripts and VSS, Apocryphal Gospels and an early collection of sayings of Jesus, liturgical texts, patristic and medieval literature and the Talmud.

3. Sayings to Be Excluded

Many of these sayings have no claim to be regarded as independent agrapha. At least five classes come under this category. (1) Some are mere parallels or variants, for instance: “Pray and be not weary,” which is evidently connected with Luk 18:1; and the saying in the Talmud: “I, the Gospel, did not come to take away from the law of Moses but to add to the law of Moses have I come” (Shab 116b) which is clearly a variant of Mat 5:17. (2) Some sayings are made up of two or more canonical texts. “I chose you before the world was,” for example, is a combination of Joh 15:19 and Eph 1:4; and “Abide in my love and I will give you eternal life” of Joh 8:31 and Joh 10:28. (3) Misquotation or loose quotation accounts for a number of alleged agrapha. “Sodom is justified more than thou” seems to be really from Eze 16:53 and its context. “Let not the sun go down upon your wrath” is of apostolic not evangelic origin (Eph 4:26). “Anger destroys even the prudent” comes from Septuagint of Pro 15:1. (4) Some sayings must be rejected because they cannot be traced to an early source, for instance, the fine saying: “Be brave in war, and fight with the old serpent, and ye shall receive eternal life,” which is first met with in a text of the 12th century (5) Several sayings are suspicious by reason of their source or their character. The reference to “my mother the Holy Spirit,” in one of them, has no warrant in the acknowledged teaching of Christ and comes from a source of uncertain value, the Gospel according to the Hebrews. Pantheistic sayings such as “I am thou and thou art I, and wherever thou art I am”; “You are I and I am you”; and perhaps the famous saying: “Raise the stone and thou wilt find me; cleave the wood and there am I,” as well as the sayings reported by Epiphanius from the Gospel of the Ebionites seem to breathe an atmosphere different from that of the canonical Gospels.

4. Sayings in New Testament

When all the sayings belonging to these five classes, and a few others of liturgical origin, have been deducted there remain about thirty-five which are worthy of mention and in some cases of careful consideration. Some are dealt with in the article LOGIA (which see). The others, which are given here, are numbered consecutively to facilitate reference. The best authenticated are of course those found in the New Testament outside of the Gospels. These are (1) The great saying cited by Paul at Miletus: “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Act 20:35); (2) The words used in the institution of the Eucharist preserved only in 1Co 11:24; (3) The promise of the baptism of the Spirit (Act 1:5 and Act 11:16); and (4) The answer to the question: “Dost thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” (Act 1:7). Less certain are (5) The description of the Second Advent, said to be “by the word of the Lord” (1Th 4:15); and (6) The promise of the crown of life to them that love God (Jas 1:12).

5. Sayings in Manuscripts and Versions

Of considerable interest are some additions, in manuscripts of the Gospels and versions One of the most remarkable (7) is the comment of Jesus on a man’s working on the Sabbath day inserted after Luk 6:4 in Codex Bezae (D) and the Freer manuscript recently discovered in Egypt: “If thou knowest what thou doest, O man, blessed art thou, but if thou knowest not, thou art accursed and a transgressor of the law.” Another (8) also found in D and in several other authorities is appended to Mat 20:28: “But ye seek ye from little to increase and from greater to be less.” In the Curetonian Syriac the latter clause runs: “and not from greater to be less.” The new saying is noteworthy but obscure. A third passage (9) of less value but still of interest is an insertion in the longer ending of Mark, between Mar 16:14 and Mar 16:15, which was referred to by Jerome as present in codices in his day but has now been met with in Greek for the first time in the above-mentioned Freer MS. (For facsimile see American Journal of Archaeology, 1908.) In reply to a complaint of the disciples about the opposition of Satan and their request: “Therefore reveal thy righteousness even now,” Jesus is reported to have said: “The limit of the years of the authority of Satan is fulfilled, but other dreadful things are approaching, and in behalf of those who had sinned was I delivered unto death in order that they might return to the truth and might sin no longer, that they might inherit the spiritual and incorruptible glory of righteousness in heaven.” This alleged utterance of the risen Lord is most probably of secondary character (compare Gregory, Das Freer Logion; Swete, Two New Gospel Fragments).

6. Sayings from the Fathers, Etc

Apocryphal and patristic literature supplies some notable sayings. The first place must be given (10) to the great saying which in its shortest form consists of only three words: “Be (“become,” “show yourselves to be”) approved money-changers.” Resch (Agrapha², number 87) gives 69 references, at least 19 of which date from the 2nd and 3rd centuries, although they represent only a few authorities, all Egyptian. The saying seems to have circulated widely in the early church and may be genuine. Other early sayings of interest or value, from these sources, must be given without comment. (11) “The heavenly Father willeth the repentance of the sinner rather than his punishment” (Justin Martyr). (12) “That which is weak shall be saved by that which is strong” (circa 300 ad). (13) “Come out from bonds ye who will” (Clement of Alexandria). (14) “Be thou saved and thy soul” (Theodotus in id). (15) “Blessed are they who mourn for the perdition of unbelievers” (Didaskalia). (16) “He who is near me is near the fire; he who is far from me is far from the kingdom” (Origen). (17) “He who has not been tempted has not been approved” (Didaskalia, etc.). (18) He who makes sad a brother’s spirit is one of the greatest of criminals” (Ev Heb). (19) “Never be glad except when ye have seen your brother in love” (same place). (20) “Let not him who seeks cease ... until he find, and when he finds he shall be astonished; astonished he shall reach the kingdom, and when he has reached the kingdom he shall rest” (Clement of Alexandria and Logia of Oxyrhynchus). (21) In a fragment of a Gospel found by Grenfell and Hunt at Oxyrhynchus (O Papyri number 655) is the following non-canonical passage in a canonical context: “He Himself will give you clothing. His disciples say unto Him: When wilt thou be manifest to us and when shall we see thee? He saith: When ye shall be stripped and not be ashamed.” The saying or apocryphon exhibits considerable likeness to a saying cited by Clement of Alexandria from the Gospel according to the Egyptians, but the difference is great enough to make original identity doubtful. Another fragment found by the same explorers on the same site (O Papyri number 840) preserves two agrapha or apocrypha which though clearly secondary are very curious. The first (22) is the concluding portion of a saying about the punishment of evil-doers: “Before a man does wrong he makes all manner of subtle excuses. But give heed lest you also suffer the same things as they for the evil-doers among men receive not their due among the living (Greek zō̇is) only but also await punishment and much torment.” Professor Swete (Two New Gospel Fragments), accents zōois as the plural of zōon and thus finds a contrast between the fate of animals and that of human beings. The second saying (23) is a rather lengthy reply to the complaint of a Pharisaic stickler for outward purity. The most interesting part of it as edited by Swete runs as follows: “Woe to you blind who see not.... But I and my disciples who thou sayest have not been dipped have dipped in the waters of eternal life which come down from God out of heaven.” All these texts from Oxyrhynchus probably date from the 2nd century. Other Egypt sources, the so-called Coptic Apocryphal Gospels (Texts and Studies Camb. IV, 2, 1896), contain several sayings which are of interest as coming from the same religious environment. The following three are the most remarkable. (24) “Repent, for it is better that a man find a cup of water in the age that is coming than all the riches of this world” (130). (25) “Better is a single footstep in My Father’s house than all the wealth of this world” (130 f). (26) “Now therefore have faith in the love of My Father; for faith is the end of all things” (176). As in the case of the Logia these sayings are found in association with canonical sayings and parallels. Since the Logia may well have numbered scores, if not hundreds, it is at least possible that these Coptic sayings may have been taken from the missing portions of this collection, or a recension of it, and therefore they are not unworthy of notice as conceivably early agrapha. To these sayings of Christian derivation may be added (27) one Muhammadan saying, that inscribed in Arabic on the chief gateway of the city Futteypore Sikri built by Akbar: “The world is but a bridge, over which you must pass, but must not linger to build your dwelling” (In the Himalayas by Miss Gordon Cumming, cited by Griffenhoofe, The Unwritten Sayings of Christ, 128).

7. Result

Although the number of agrapha purporting to be sayings of Jesus which have been collected by scholars seems at first sight imposing, those which have anything like a strong claim to acceptance on the ground of early and reliable source and internal character are disappointingly few. Of those given above numbers 1-4, 7, 8, 10 which have mostly early attestation clearly take precedence of the rest. Numbers 11-20 are early enough and good enough to merit respectful consideration. Still the proportion of genuine, or possibly genuine, material is very small. Ropes is probably not far from the truth when he remarks that “the writers of the Synoptic Gospels did their work so well that only stray bits here and there, and these but of small value, were left for the gleaners.” On the other hand it is not necessary to follow Wellhausen in rejecting the agrapha in toto. Recent discoveries have shown that they are the remains of a considerable body of extra-canonical sayings which circulated more or less in Christian circles, especially in Egypt, in the early centuries, and the possible presence in what we possess of a sentence or two actually spoken by Jesus fully justifies research.

8. Other Agrapha

The second edition of the work of Resch includes 17 agrapha from manuscripts of Acts and 1 Jn most of which are from Codex Bezae (D), 31 apostolic apocrypha, and 66 agrapha and apocrypha connected with the Old Testament. 19 of the latter are largely taken from pseudepigrapha, a pseudo-Ezekiel for instance These agrapha some of which are really textual variants are of inferior interest and value.

Literature

The chief authorities are the German book of the American scholar J. H. Ropes, Die Sprüche Jesu, die in den kanonischen Evangelien nicht überliefert sind, and his article “Agrapha” in HDB (extra vol); and the often-mentioned work of Resch. The former has great critical value, and the latter, especially in the 2nd edition, is a veritable thesaurus of material. For a full survey of the literature up to 1905 see that work, pp. 14-17. There is much criticism in Bauer’s Das Leben Jesu im Zeitalter der neutestamentlichen Apokryphen, chapter vii. Among smaller works special mention may be made of Prebendary Blomfield’s Twenty-Five Agrapha (1900); and the book of Griffenhoofe, the title of which is given above. There are recent articles on the subject in HDB (1909), “Unwritten Sayings,” and DCG, “Sayings (Unwritten)”; Am. Journal of Archaeology, XII (1908), 49-55; H. A. Sanders, New manuscripts from Egypt; also ib, XIII (1909), 130. See LOGIA.