| Origen locus | Greek text Origen keys on | Ammonian pericope no. (Matthew) | What it’s doing (1–2 sentences) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10.16 | Καὶ ἐγένετο, ὅτε ἐτέλεσεν ὁ Ἰησοῦς τὰς παραβολὰς ταύτας, μετῆρεν ἐκεῖθεν. Καὶ ἐλθὼν εἰς τὴν πατρίδα αὐτοῦ… (Matt 13:53–58) | Ammonian §73 (Matt 13:53–58), Canon X | This is a classic section-head incipit (“ὅτε ἐτέλεσεν… μετῆρεν ἐκεῖθεν”), marking the close of the parable block and the narrative move to Nazareth. Origen treats it exactly as a new pericope unit, matching §73. |
| 10.16 | Πρόσχες δὲ ὅτι… καὶ ἐλθὼν εἰς τὴν πατρίδα αὐτοῦ… Καὶ ὁ Μᾶρκος δέ φησι· «Καὶ ἦλθεν εἰς τὴν πατρίδα αὐτοῦ…» | Ammonian §73 (Matt 13:53–58) ↔ Markan parallel | Origen explicitly binds the Matthean unit to its Markan counterpart by quoting the parallel incipit. That is pericope-level alignment behavior, not casual harmonization. |
| 10.20 | Ἐν ἐκείνῳ τῷ καιρῷ ἤκουσεν Ἡρώδης ὁ τετράρχης τὴν ἀκοὴν Ἰησοῦ… (Matt 14:1–2) | Ammonian §74 (Matt 14:1–2), Canon II | Origen restarts on the temporal incipit “Ἐν ἐκείνῳ τῷ καιρῷ…,” which the Ammonian system treats as a new aligned unit. He immediately notes Mark and Luke parallels, confirming §74 as a synoptic pericope-head. |
| 10.23 | …καὶ ἐλθόντες ἀπήγγειλαν τῷ Ἰησοῦ… Ἀκούσας δὲ ὁ Ἰησοῦς ἀνεχώρησεν… (Matt 14:12–13) | Seam between §75 (Matt 14:3–12) and §76 (Matt 14:13–21) | Origen keys on the hinge where John’s death concludes (§75) and Jesus’ withdrawal begins (§76). His lemma sits precisely on the Ammonian boundary, which explains the verse spread: he is rekeying at the transition into the next narrative unit. |
What makes this passage valuable is that Origen is not merely sprinkling Gospel phrases into a theological discussion. He repeatedly parks the exposition on formulas that function exactly as Ammonian unit boundaries. He restarts first at “Καὶ ἐγένετο, ὅτε ἐτέλεσεν… μετῆρεν ἐκεῖθεν,” which corresponds to Ammonian §73 (Matt 13:53–58), the formal close of the parable discourse and the transition to the Nazareth episode. He then restarts again at “Ἐν ἐκείνῳ τῷ καιρῷ…,” the incipit of Ammonian §74 (Matt 14:1–2), the Herod episode that is explicitly synoptic. Finally, he keys his next discussion on “Ἀκούσας δὲ ὁ Ἰησοῦς ἀνεχώρησεν…,” which sits precisely on the §75 → §76 boundary (the conclusion of John’s death narrative and the opening of Jesus’ withdrawal and feeding episode).
These are not random prooftexts. They are narrative hinges: end-of-block, new-scene, new-episode triggers. And those hinges are exactly what the Ammonian (and later Eusebian) apparatus requires—short, stable pericope units whose beginnings can be indexed and whose parallels can be aligned across Matthew, Mark, and Luke.
Crucially, Origen’s own behavior matches this unitized mode of reading. He does not merely cite Matthew; he immediately verifies the pericope as a correlated block by invoking the parallel incipit in Mark (“Καὶ ὁ Μᾶρκος δὲ φησί…”), and when he turns to the Herod material he makes the synoptic alignment explicit (“Παρὰ δὲ τῷ Μάρκῳ… καὶ παρὰ τῷ Λουκᾷ οὕτως”). That is pericope-level verification, not casual harmonization. It presupposes that “this passage here” is already recognized as a discrete episode with counterparts elsewhere.
This is not how one writes if one is merely producing a continuous, verse-by-verse commentary on Matthew in isolation. It is how one writes when one expects the reader to recognize that specific narrative blocks are already segmented and mutually indexed. In other words, Origen’s lemma-practice presupposes precisely the kind of segmentation Ammonius introduced and that Eusebius later systematized with numbers and canon tables.
So, on the narrow question “are Ammonian boundaries actually in play here?”—yes, demonstrably so. Origen treats the incipits of §73, §74, and the §75→§76 seam as the beginnings of discussable units, and he treats those units as cross-gospel correlatable. That is the functional definition of working with Ammonian pericopes, even in the absence of visible numerals.
And on the question of numeration: the numerals are not supplied by Origen, but they are now recoverable from the system itself. Once the Ammonian sectioning is applied, Origen’s practice lines up cleanly with it. The later Eusebian tables do not invent this logic; they merely formalize a way of reading the Gospels that Origen is already using.
