| Origen locus | Citation | Gospel | Ammonian pericope no. | Ammonian pericope range (from your file) | Boundary type |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12.1 lemma | Mt 16:1 | Matthew | 161 | Matthew 16:1 | entire pericope (single-verse unit; both start+end) |
| 12.1 | Mt 27:22–23 | Matthew | 326 | Matthew 27:22–23 | entire pericope (exact match) |
| 12.1 | Lk 23:12 | Luke | 306 | Lk 23:11–12 | end of pericope (verse = terminus) |
| 12.1 | Lk 23:21 | Luke | 311 | Lk 23:20–21 | end of pericope (verse = terminus) |
| 12.1 / 12.3 | Lk 23:43 | Luke | 326 | Lk 23:40–43 | end of pericope (verse = terminus) |
| 12.2 | Mt 4:23 | Matthew | 23 | Matthew 4:23–25 | start of pericope (verse = incipit) |
| 12.2 | Mt 9:35 | Matthew | 76 | Matthew 9:35 | entire pericope (single-verse unit; both start+end) |
| 12.2 | Mt 16:1 (repeated) | Matthew | 161 | Matthew 16:1 | entire pericope (single-verse unit; both start+end) |
| 12.2 | Lk 11:15 | Luke | 127 | Lk 11:15 | entire pericope (single-verse unit; both start+end) |
| 12.2 | Mt 22:37–40 | Matthew | 224 | Matthew 22:34–40 | end of pericope (verse = terminus) |
| 12.3 | Mt 12:39 | Matthew | 128 | Matthew 12:39–42 | start of pericope (verse = incipit) |
| 12.3 | Mt 16:4 | Matthew | 163 | Matthew 16:4 | entire pericope (single-verse unit; both start+end) |
In Comm. Matt. 12.1–3 the most probative “Greek-level” evidence for an Ammonian-type apparatus is not a δήλωσις of tables as such (Origen never says “Ammonius” here), but the way scriptural material functions as a set of stable navigation-pegs—incipits and termini that behave like section-heads rather than like ordinary prooftexts. What stands out is Origen’s habit of re-anchoring the exposition on exactly the sort of verse that, in a sectional system, can serve as a node for cross-reference. The effect is that citation is doing two jobs at once: it supplies content for argument and it silently supplies a coordinate in the Gospel text.
First, Origen’s lemmatizing practice already presupposes segmentation. The lemma at 12.1 (“Καὶ προσελθόντες … σημεῖον ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ ἐπιδεῖξαι αὐτοῖς”) marks off a discrete narrative/controversy unit (Mt 16:1–4) and he then works outward from that lemma, repeatedly returning to the same coordinate (Mt 16:1 appears again in 12.2). In other words, the Greek citation is not merely decorative; it behaves as a unit-label. The phenomenon becomes sharper when the citations coincide with verses that—within an Ammonian segmentation—are themselves pericope boundaries (or even single-verse pericopes). A citation like Mt 9:35 or Lk 11:15 does not read, in Origen’s Greek, as a rhetorically “necessary” proof; it reads as a place-marker that can be lifted and reused because it is formally stable. The stability is precisely what a harmonizing concordance requires.
Second, Origen’s cross-Gospel movement in 12.1 is characteristic of someone thinking in parallel blocks rather than in free association. He slides from the discordant Σαδδουκαῖοι καὶ Φαρισαῖοι to the Lucan pair Ἡρῴδης and Πιλᾶτος (“ὡς ὁ Λουκᾶς ἀνέγραψε”) and then to Psalmic language about rulers conspiring (“παρέστησαν … συνήχθησαν ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτό”), all in the service of reading “hostile agreement” as a recurring pattern. The point is not simply that he knows Luke; it is that the move has the feel of an apparatus-assisted alignment: a Matthean testing scene can be illuminated by a Lucan “friends” scene because both are cognitively treated as corresponding units. The Greek connective tissue (“ὅμοιον δέ … ὡς ὁ Λουκᾶς ἀνέγραψε”) is the language of parallelizing, not of casual reminiscence.
Third, the density of boundary-style citations inside 12.1–3 is hard to explain as incidental. Consider how often Origen’s explicit references land on what function well as sectional termini: Lk 23:12; 23:21; 23:43; Mt 27:22–23; Mt 22:37–40. These are not “random memorable half-lines.” In Greek terms they are compact, quotable, and—crucially—graphically easy to locate because they correspond to short, self-contained narrative or dialogue endpoints. The repeated “καὶ τὰ ἑξῆς”-type handling is not in Comm. Matt. 12 itself, but the pattern is: Origen tends to cite a crisp anchor and then expand by explanation rather than by extended continuous quotation. That is exactly the workflow of someone who can return to an indexed unit quickly.
When you contrast this with the language of To Theodore (your excerpt), the difference is that Theodore makes the apparatus explicit in its surface rhetoric. The writer frames his response as an exercise in textual policing through “the words of the Gospel”: “δι᾽ αὐτῶν τοῦ εὐαγγελίου λέξεων … ἐλέγχων.” Then he uses recognizably “apparatus” idiom: “Ἀμέλει μετὰ τὸ … καὶ τὰ ἑξῆς ἕως …” followed by “Ὧδε ἐπιφέρει κατὰ λέξιν …” and later “Ἐπὶ μὲν τούτοις ἕπεται … καὶ πᾶσα ἡ περικοπή.” This is the diction of sequencing by fixed waypoints: μετά + incipit (“μετὰ τὸ ἦσαν δὲ …”), the shorthand “καὶ τὰ ἑξῆς ἕως” marking a bounded run, and the technical noun περικοπή used as if the unit is an object one can point to (“πᾶσα ἡ περικοπή”). The rhetoric presupposes not merely knowledge of Gospel text but a practice of moving through it by sectional demarcations.
So which is the stronger witness to Ammonius?
On the level of explicitness, Theodore is stronger. Its Greek offers overt navigational formulas—“μετὰ τὸ …,” “καὶ τὰ ἑξῆς ἕως …,” “κατὰ λέξιν,” “πᾶσα ἡ περικοπή”—that sound like someone consulting (or at least imitating) a segmented copy where pericopes are treated as discrete, enumerable blocks. Even if one brackets questions of authenticity, the linguistic posture is “apparatus-forward”: the writer wants the reader to picture a manuscript pathway through Mark, stepped by incipits and bounded runs.
But as evidence specifically for Origen’s use of an Ammonian apparatus, Comm. Matt. 12.1–3 is arguably the more historically weighty (even if less “loud”) witness, because it shows the apparatus at work without advertising it. Origen’s Greek does not perform the librarian; it performs the exegete. Yet the exegete’s habits—lemma-based exposition, recurrent anchoring on stable coordinates, and cross-Gospel alignment that repeatedly lands on boundary-friendly nodes—fit extremely well with an environment in which Gospel text is already being handled in sectional units capable of cross-reference. In that sense Origen’s evidence is “weaker” if one demands overt jargon, but “stronger” if one values behavioral traces over explicit self-description: it is precisely the kind of trace you would expect when an apparatus has become normal scholarly infrastructure.
Put sharply: Theodore sounds like someone talking about an apparatus (“after this clause… up to… the whole pericope”), whereas Origen sounds like someone thinking with one—letting boundary-stable lemmata and parallel units govern how the argument moves. If the question is “which text more clearly reflects an Ammonian-like mode of navigation in Greek?”, Theodore; if the question is “which gives the firmer historical footprint that an apparatus was operational in learned exegesis?”, Origen, precisely because his Greek does not need to explain the mechanism in order to rely on it.
