| Reference | Gospel | Comm. Matt. | Ammonian # | Ammonian range | Boundary type |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mt 13:36 | Matthew | 10.1 | 140 | Mt 13:36–53 | Start |
| Mt 5:14–16 | Matthew | 10.3 | 32 | Mt 5:14–16 | Start and end (entire pericope) |
| Mt 5:16 | Matthew | 10.3 | 32 | Mt 5:14–16 | End |
Denial: in Commentary on Matthew 10.1–3 there is no objective linguistic or methodological evidence that Origen is citing, or consciously operating within, an Ammonian pericope apparatus.
When the analysis is restricted to the acknowledged scriptural citations actually deployed in Comm. Matt. 10.1–3, Origen’s practice is fully explicable within ordinary lemmatic exegesis and does not display the characteristic signals of pericope-boundary navigation. His handling of Matthew 13:36–43, which governs the entire section, is especially instructive. Origen introduces the passage by reproducing the narrative incipit, Τότε ἀφεὶς τοὺς ὄχλους ἦλθεν εἰς τὴν οἰκίαν αὐτοῦ, followed immediately by the disciples’ request for explanation of the parable. This is not framed as a boundary marker but as the narrative setting that motivates interpretation. The citation functions as a lemma anchoring exposition, not as an index entry delimiting a textual unit.
Throughout 10.1 Origen moves freely within and across the Matthean context. The appeal to John 1:35–40 is introduced by καὶ τὰ τοιαῦτά γε οἶμαι δεδηλῶσθαι ἐν τῷ κατὰ Ἰωάννην εὐαγγελίῳ διὰ τούτων, followed by direct quotation. The language presupposes thematic analogy rather than structural correspondence. No boundary-sensitive phrasing appears—there is no μετὰ τὸ…, τὰ ἑξῆς ἕως…, ὧδε ἐπιφέρει…, or reference to περικοπή. The Johannine verses are treated as illustrative parallels, not as delimited segments located by an external apparatus.
In 10.2 Origen explicitly resumes from within the Matthean explanation itself: Μετὰ ταῦτα ἀποκριθεὶς εἶπεν ἀπὸ τοῦ· ὁ σπείρων τὸ καλὸν σπέρμα…. The formula ἀπὸ τοῦ marks a starting phrase for exposition, not the start of a recognized pericope. Origen then ranges across Mt 13:37–43 with repeated intra-textual restatement and paraphrase, occasionally isolating single verses such as Mt 13:40 or Mt 13:42, but never signaling that a boundary has been crossed or completed. The sequence is governed by semantic development—the identification of σπέρμα, ζιζάνια, θερισμός, συντέλεια τοῦ αἰῶνος—not by structural segmentation.
The same pattern persists in 10.3. Citations from Mt 13:43, Mt 5:14, and Mt 5:16 are introduced as conceptual supports for the motif of luminosity and glory. The connective logic is explicitly argumentative and theological. Origen’s transitions—Ἀλλ’ ἐπεὶ ἀνωτέρω ἐφάσκομεν…, Ζητήσει οὖν τις…, Ὑπολαμβάνω οὖν ὅτι…—are discursive markers, not navigational ones. They indicate reasoning within an interpretive continuum, not movement from one textual unit to another as fixed blocks.
Crucially, although modern alignment shows that Mt 13:36 is indeed the beginning of an Ammonian section and Mt 13:43 its end, nothing in Origen’s Greek registers that fact. He neither signals a start nor marks a closure. The citations coincide with Ammonian boundaries only retrospectively, from the standpoint of later canonical tables. In Origen’s prose they function simply as the natural opening and closing points of the Matthean explanation itself, which would be equally salient in any continuous Gospel manuscript without sectional division.
This profile contrasts sharply with the language seen in the Letter to Theodore, where boundary-awareness is explicit and linguistically encoded. There the text moves by incipit-based reference and range delimitation—μετὰ τὸ ἦσαν δὲ…, καὶ τὰ ἑξῆς ἕως…, ἐπὶ τούτοις ἕπεται…, πᾶσα ἡ περικοπή—precisely the sort of phrasing that presupposes an apparatus of stable, named units. No such phrasing appears in Comm. Matt. 10.1–3.
Accordingly, when confined to the Greek evidence of Comm. Matt. 10.1–3 and its acknowledged scriptural citations, the conclusion is negative. Origen is not citing Ammonian pericopes as pericopes. He is quoting Scripture in a continuous, lemma-driven exegetical mode, one that neither requires nor betrays the use of an Ammonian reference system, even where his chosen verses happen to coincide with later-recognized sectional boundaries.
