Origen's Use of Ammonius in Commentary on Matthew [Part Four]

Work	Passage	Greek textual indicators of Ammonian-style pericope / unit use	Strength as witness for Ammonius-style unit thinking
Origen, Commentary on Matthew	10.20–10.22 (Herod hears of Jesus; “This is John”; narration of John’s arrest; Matt 14:1–2 and the expansion toward 14:3ff.)	Origen keys off a scene-heading / unit-incpit: «Ἐν ἐκείνῳ τῷ καιρῷ…»—a classic Matthean hinge that in practice signals a new block. He immediately treats it as a three-Gospel parallel unit: «Παρὰ δὲ τῷ Μάρκῳ οὕτως καὶ παρὰ τῷ Λουκᾷ οὕτως», i.e. “this pericope exists in Mark and Luke too,” not as scattered verbal overlap but as a synchronized dossier. He then labels his question explicitly as pericope-local: «Τὸ οὖν ζητούμενον κατὰ τὸν τόπον ἐστίν…» (“what is being investigated in this place/passage”), which is Origen’s most overt marker that he is working inside a bounded unit. His argument proceeds by testing the pericope’s claim (“Jesus = John raised”) against (a) contemporary Jewish δόξαι (Sadducees vs Pharisees), (b) narrative identity-data (Jesus publicly known as “son of the carpenter,” Mary, brothers/sisters vs John son of Zechariah/Elizabeth), and (c) chronology (the ~six-month interval between their births), and he uses those constraints to prune implausible readings (μετενσωμάτωσις) and to prefer a “transfer of δυνάμεις” model, explicitly analogized to the idiom “in spirit and power of Elijah.” Structurally, he also “chains” adjacent pericopes by a numbered sequence: «ἐπεὶ δὲ πρῶτον… δεύτερον… καὶ τρίτον…», linking (1) Jesus withdrawing when John is handed over, (2) John’s prison inquiry (“Are you the coming one?”), (3) Herod’s claim. That is classic unit-tracking: pericope A conditions how pericope B should be read. Finally, he makes a redactional-pericope observation: since “nowhere earlier” had the manner of John’s death been narrated, Matthew now inserts it, Mark parallels, Luke largely omits—a comment that presupposes pericope segmentation and comparison across evangelists.	Very High — This is one of Origen’s clearest “pericope-engine” performances: he treats «Ἐν ἐκείνῳ τῷ καιρῷ» as a unit-heading, immediately aligns Matthew–Mark–Luke, explicitly frames the exegetical problem “according to the place,” and then builds a pericope-to-pericope scaffold (πρῶτον/δεύτερον/τρίτον) that explains why Matthew expands the unit with John’s arrest/death narrative. It’s strong evidence for a canon-table habit of reading in bounded, cross-Gospel units even though no Ammonian number is cited.