| Gospel | Citation (as given in your list) | Boundary status | Ammonian pericope number(s) | Pericope range(s) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Matthew | Mt 4:19–20 | boundary-crossing | 21 → 22 | 21 = “Mt 4:19–20”; 22 = “Mt 4:21–22” |
| Matthew | Mt 16:21 | boundary start | 168 | 168 = “Mt 16:20–21” |
| Matthew | Mt 16:22 | boundary start | 169 | 169 = “Mt 16:22–23” |
| Matthew | Mt 16:22–23 | boundary-contained (unit) | 169 | 169 = “Mt 16:22–23” |
| Mark | Mk 1:16–17 | boundary-crossing | 9 → 10 | 9 = “Mk 1:14b–16”; 10 = “Mk 1:17–18” |
| Luke | Lk 22:61–62 | boundary-crossing | 292 → 293 | 292 = “Lk 22:58–61a”; 293 = “Lk 22:61b–62” |
| John | Jn 1:37–38 | boundary-contained (unit) | 16 | 16 = “Jn 1:35–40” |
The Greek of Origen’s exegetical practice supplies indirect but cumulative evidence for the use (or, at minimum, the ready availability) of an Ammonian apparatus. This is not ordinarily signaled in Origen by explicit “Ammonian numbers,” but rather by a characteristic economy in the handling of Gospel lemmata: Gospel material is treated as a set of stable, retrievable units that can be isolated, re-entered, and coordinated across evangelists with minimal navigational scaffolding. Origen’s interpretive transitions frequently presuppose that a reader can locate discrete narrative or discourse blocks without continuous citation of their immediate context, and can recognize parallels as structured correspondences rather than as occasional reminiscences. Such a mode of reading aligns closely with what the Ammonian enterprise was designed to enable: a text divided into addressable pericopes whose beginnings can be indexed and whose parallels can be mechanically located.
In this respect, the most probative evidence lies not in the presence of “table language” but in the logic of Origen’s cross-evangelist movement. When a Matthean lemma is glossed with appeal to a Lukan formulation and then sharpened by Johannine diction, the procedure presupposes more than generic familiarity with four texts; it presupposes the practical possibility of rapid relocation and comparison. That is precisely the function of an Ammonian system, whether embodied in a formal set of sections and canons or in a less standardized but still pericope-oriented set of scholarly aids. The Greek of Origen’s exposition therefore points to an environment in which pericope demarcation and parallelization are not occasional conveniences but routine conditions of scholarly work.
By contrast, the excerpt from the Letter to Theodore (2)—here attributed to Clement addressing Theodore—exhibits an unusually explicit Greek metalanguage of boundary-navigation. Clement frames his refutation as one conducted “δι᾽ αὐτῶν τοῦ εὐαγγελίου λέξεων,” that is, by deploying the Gospel’s own verbal texture as the criterion of authenticity. The method immediately becomes topographical: the disputed material is adjudicated by specifying where, within the Gospel’s sequence, a passage is said to stand and what in fact follows there. The key markers are overtly delimiting. “Ἀμέλει μετὰ τὸ … καὶ τὰ ἑξῆς ἕως …” functions as a pair of coordinates: an incipit anchor (“μετὰ τὸ ἦσαν δὲ ἐν τῇ ὁδῷ…”) and a terminus (“ἕως, μετὰ τρεῖς ἡμέρας ἀναστήσεται”). The phrase “καὶ τὰ ἑξῆς ἕως” is especially diagnostic, because it presupposes a recognized contiguous stretch whose extent can be indicated without reproducing its full contents. Clement then introduces the inserted narrative with a joining formula, “Ὧδε ἐπιφέρει κατὰ λέξιν,” a seam-marker that defines the attachment as sequential and verbatim. Later, “Ἐπὶ μὲν τούτοις ἕπεται … καὶ πᾶσα ἡ περικοπή” intensifies the same logic: “ἕπεται” is an explicit “next comes” indicator, and “πᾶσα ἡ περικοπή” is unmistakably unit-language, treating the ensuing material not as an undifferentiated continuation but as a bounded excerpt-category. Finally, Clement’s negative claim, “Τὸ δὲ γυμνοὶ γυμνῷ … οὐκ εὑρίσκεται,” is framed as a statement of non-location within an implicitly controlled textual map: the disputed wording fails the test because it cannot be found at the expected seam. The subsequent “Μετὰ δὲ τὸ καὶ ἔρχεται εἰς Ἱεριχὼ ἐπάγει μόνον” repeats the same apparatus-like behavior: an incipit anchor followed by a controlled assertion of what the text “adds” at that point, and—by implication—what it does not add.
This difference in Greek idiom is crucial for assessing evidentiary weight. Clement’s passage is the stronger witness to pericope consciousness at the level of explicit discourse: the text speaks in the language of seams, delimiters, and excerpt-units (“μετὰ τὸ…,” “τὰ ἑξῆς ἕως…,” “Ὧδε ἐπιφέρει…,” “πᾶσα ἡ περικοπή”). However, it is simultaneously the weaker witness to the distinctively Ammonian dimension of parallel correlation, because its logic is primarily intratextual and sequential. The passage is concerned with where a disputed narrative is inserted in Mark and what follows there; it does not, in the cited lines, perform the Ammonian task of aligning Markan units with Matthaean, Lukan, or Johannine counterparts. Clement’s Greek therefore attests most clearly to the existence and intelligibility of a boundary-oriented way of handling Gospel text, not to the canonic (cross-Gospel) architecture that Ammonius’ system formalized.
Origen’s Greek exhibits the inverse profile. It is typically less explicit in boundary metalanguage, yet more structurally consonant with the goal of Ammonius: the sustained coordination of parallel loci across the fourfold Gospel for exegetical control. Where Clement’s excerpt demonstrates the “addressability” of the Gospel as segmented text, Origen’s habitual practice demonstrates the “interoperability” of those segments across evangelists. For that reason, the Letter to Theodore is best characterized as corroborative background evidence: it shows that the Greek discourse of pericope boundaries—indeed, the very category of “περικοπή” as a manipulable unit—was available within early Christian scholarly and polemical practice. It does not, by itself, establish Origen’s dependence on Ammonius. Origen remains the primary witness to the comparative use-case that an Ammonian apparatus exists to serve, while Clement’s Greek provides a vivid instance of the boundary-governed textual policing that such an apparatus presupposes at the most basic level.
