i. NAME.—The name Agrapha was first used in 1776 (J. G. Korner, De sermonibus Christi dypagots, Leipzig) for the Sayings purporting to come from Jesus Christ but transmitted to us outside of the canonical Gospels. The term was suggested by the idea that these Sayings are stray survivals from an unwritten tradition, orally preserved and running parallel with the written Gospels. It is now re- cognized that this description does not strictly apply to many Sayings which must be included in any collection of such material; but the name
has proved convenient, and since the publica-
tion of Resch’s elaborate monograph (‘ Agrapha : Aussercanonische Evangelienfragmente in méglich- ster Vollstandigkeit zusammengestellt und unter- sucht,’ in Teate und Untersuchungen, Vv. 4, 1889), has passed into general use.
* Of., further, on various points dealt with in this article, the following art. AGRAPIA.
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ii, CERTAIN SAYINGS NOT TO BE INCLUDED.— In a collection of Agrapha it is, however, neither customary nor advisable to include all that falls under the definition just given. The long dis- courses ascribed to Jesus in such works as the Didascalia, or to the Risen Christ, as in the Pistis Sophia,* have no claim to authenticity, and are profitably studied only in their original context. The same is to be said of most of the compara- tively few Sayings of Jesus found in the religious romances known as Apocryphal Gospels, whether Gnostic or Catholic, and in the Apocryphal Acts, as well as of the Letter of Christ to Abgar (Euseb. HE i. 13). And of some of the Sayings now usually and rightly included in the lists it must be said that if their full context were known it would probably at once appear that they were of this same sort, and were better omitted. Of a different character are the Sayings preserved from those uncanonical Gospels which were designed, like the canonical Gospels, to embody Evangelical tradition for serious public or private use. To this class of writings belong the Gospel according to the Hebrews, together with the (far less valuable) Gospel according to the Egyptians, and the Ebionite Gospel (mainly based upon the canonical Gospels) known to Epiphanius. With these would be placed also the Gospel according to Peter; but the only fragment of it extant contains no Saying of Jesus excepting a peculiar form of the word from the cross of Mk 15%4, Mt 27%,
It is also to be remarked that in nearly all the published collections of Agrapha a considerable number of Sayings will be actually found which for various reasons have no right to be included as independent Agrapha. (a) Some of these are obviously mere parallel forms or expansions or combinations of Sayings found in the canonical Gospels.
For instance—
Ephr. Syr. Testamentum (Opp. Greece, ed. Assemani, vol. ii. p. 232), rod yap dyabod Sidackddov Hrovoa év Tots Gels evaryyeNlors $7)- cayros Tols éavTod mabynrais’ undev éml yijs KTI- onde: ‘For 1 heard the Good Teacher in the divine Gospels saying to his disciples, Get you nothing on earth.’ Cf. Mt 6” 10°, Lk 12.
With regard to such cases, the process of altera- tion of some of the Sayings of Jesus to be seen within the Synoptic Gospels themselves, whether as shown by the parallel forms in the several Gos- pels, or by the variant readings of Greek MSS and the renderings of early Versions, should be a warning against assuming too easily the presence of an independent Saying. There is a strong pre- sumption in favour of accounting for half-strange Sayings of Jesus from the universally current canonical Gospel tradition. But, in determining whether or not a Saying is to be regarded as an independent Agraphon, individual judgments will necessarily vary. Jor other Sayings which might be classed here, see below, ‘ List of Agrapha,’ Nos. 38, 49.
(b) In other cases, by a mere slip a passage from Scripture has been wrongly ascribed to Jesus by an ancient writer. For instance—
Didascalia Apostolorum Syriace (ed, La- garde, p. 11, 1. 12), ‘For the Lord saith, Wrath destroyeth even wise men.’ From Pr 151.—De aleatoribus, iii., ‘Monet Dominus et dicit : Nolite contristare Spiritum Sanctum qui in vobis est, et nolite exstinguere lumen quod in vobis effulsit’: ‘The Lord also warneth
* For certain Sayings found in the Pistis Sophia, which have a somewhat different character from the mass of that work, but are not included in the List of Agrapha given below, see Harnack, ‘Uber das gnostische Buch Pistis-Sophia’ (ZU vii. 2), 1891, p. 30f.; Ropes, Spriiche Jesu, pp. 63f., 117-119, 135 f., ef. p. 141.
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AGRAPHA
and saith, Grieve not the Holy Spirit which is in you, and quench not the light which has shone in you.’ From Eph 4°, 1 Th 5",
(c) In another class of cases the ancient writer never intended to give the impression that he was quoting a Saying of Jesus, but has merely perenor iced in homiletical fashion Jesus’ thought. Thus—
Hippolytus, Demonstratio adv. Jud«os, vii., dOev réyer* yernOjrw, & wdrep, 6 vads a’rov TPHLw- uévos: ‘Whence he says, Let their temple, Father, be desolate.’ Here the context shows that the apparent quotation is meant simply as an explanatory paraphrase of Ps 69%, of which the writer is giving a connected exposition.
Petrus Siculus, Historia Manicheorum, 34 (ed. Mai, Nova Patr. Bibl. iv. 2), ératpe, ov ddiKG oe, dméhaBes Ta od ev TH SwH cou viv Gpoy 7) ody kal traye: ‘Friend, I do thee no wrong, thou receivedst thy reward in thy lifetime; take up that which is thine and go thy way.’ The context shows that this is an address to certain specific errorists, made up by combining Mt 20%" with Lk 16%, and put by the author into the mouth of the Judge at the Last Assize.