What are the agrapha?

It does not pretend to be such "narrations" as Luke refers to in his chap. 1:1, though they were but human and therefore without divine authority, even if authentic in the main and ever so well meant. It gives no account concerning those matters which have been fully established, or believed, among Christians. It is simply a collection of sayings attributed to the Saviour.

Of these the first (as far as here appears, for it lacks the introductory clause) is the least exceptionable. That which remains appears to be a citation from Luke 6:42, as Lachmann edits and Text. Rec. according to Aleph A C D, a dozen more uncials, most cursives, and seemingly most ancient versions. But the Vatican with 13, 69, 124, 346 has ekbalein at the end; and so edit Alford, Tischendorf, Westcott and Hort. Here only we have no longer legei IC, these words being now gone. Yet the saying here given is the only one that is fairly correct according to scripture, if the introductory words once extant did not clog or alienate them.

B.C.G. — Possibly He gave more than what is preserved in the written Word, as the apostle refers to things spoken by the Lord on earth but not elsewhere recorded, as when he says, “Remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how He said, It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35). But we have in the Book all that faith requires. God has preserved all that we need.

Where or when the Lord may have said these words we cannot tell, as they are not to be found, specifically, in any of the four gospels, wherein His blessed sayings are recorded; but that He did actually use them we may gather from the above statement of the apostle Paul in his address to the Ephesian elders.

In point of fact he calls upon them to remember the words! They must, therefore, have been familiar. It was, no doubt, a sentence known and loved by these early Christians; and perhaps it had assumed a kind of proverbial form in their minds.

A. The word for "delivered" (παρέδοσαν) in Luke 1:2 is etymologically connected with that for "tradition" (παράδοσις), which in the plural comes before us in 2 Thess. 2:15. Such tradition might be either oral or written (ibid.); it is with the first that we are concerned at present. It originated with "the Apostle's teaching" (Acts 2:42), and seems to have continued for about 100 years, as there are words about it attributed to Papias, who lived, it is believed, as late as at least 130 if not 140 A.D. He tells us that Christians of his time preferred "the living voice" to written statements, one reason perhaps for delay in production of our Gospels. "There appears," wrote Thirlwall, "to be no reason for supposing that written documents of any kind entered into the general plan of the Apostles for the diffusion of Christianity" (p. 121), and, as says Bunsen in his "Hippolytus" (i., p. 28), "Nobody was anxious to have a written biography of Him whose return was daily expected." To tradition we owe the names of the respective writers of the Gospels. One saying of our Lord outside their records has been rescued for us by Paul (Acts 20:35), yet recorded by Luke himself. That this was in currency before the Apostle quoted it, may be seen by his word "remember." Other such sayings, which are credited, are found in Clement (of Rome), chapters 2, xiii., xlvi., and Polycarp, chapter 2 (see Harnack, "Sayings of Jesus," pp. 187-190). Fragmentary notes may indeed have been taken by individual hearers of the Apostles' instruction.

There remains, however, the question whether any other document, no longer existing, once furnished materials for the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. Another statement of Papias, also reproduced by Eusebius, appears in all the modern literature upon this topic. According to Papias (as well as Irenaeus and Origen), Matthew wrote λόγια (Oracles: cf. Rom. 3:2, Heb. 5:12) in the "Hebrew dialect," by which is understood Aramaic. Each, Papias says, made what he could of this record of "sayings." Its existence is not questioned by W. Kelly, or those like-minded (cf. "Irrationalism of Infidelity," pp. 102 note, 294). This is the document called "Q" by Wellhausen. Bishop Lightfoot ("Essays on Supernatural Religion," p. 173 f.) and Zahn (as Burkitt; p. 135, giving parallels with Mark at p. 147 f.) have thought that it recorded both acts and words of the Lord. Most are of opinion that, while Matthew's Gospel in its Greek form, and Luke may have drawn from this collection, Mark did not; but Ewald, B. Weiss, and Schanz extend its use to the second Gospel also. Of course, the existence of such a collection in Aramaic would carry with it the possibility of a corresponding Greek document. Words of the Lord not in our canonical Gospels seem to have been in circulation. In Acts 20:35 "remember" indicates that Paul was not speaking by revelation. "There can be no doubt," wrote Neander, "that Paul made use of written memoirs of the life of Christ" (p. 7). Some of the Apostle's own writings have not been in like manner rescued from oblivion (1 Cor. 5:9; Col. 4:16).

Harnack supposes, after Dr. Rendel Harris, that there was a written document entitled "Words of the Lord Jesus" (see Acts 20:35), which he inclines to identify with the Logia.

The matter common only to Matthew and Luke is found to be a record chiefly of the Lord's sayings: see λόγων, verse 4 of the Prologue, R.V. marg. "words," and Luke 24:19, where "things" is divisible between "deed" and "word," for which last cf. John 17:8. The two are combined again in Acts 1:1, "to do and to teach." The deeds of our Lord, as has been seen, are supposed to be accounted for by the Marcan material in Luke (section D.); for the sayings, Weisse propounded a theory, that in the composition of the Gospel of Matthew use was made of another document, which H. Holtzmann, Weizsäcker, B. Weiss, Harnack, etc., think Luke also has turned to account, each compiler being independent of the other in the process. This further phenomenon has already been introduced in the last paragraph of note 10 on Mark (p. 238). It is discussed in, amongst recent books, Hawkins' "Horae Synopticae," pp. 88 ff.; Wernle, "Synoptic Question," pp. 80-91, 224-233; Wellhausen, "Introduction," pp. 65-68; Harnack, "Sayings," and B. Weiss, "Luke's Gospel," chapter 2; "Sources of Synoptic Tradition," chapters 1, 2: and Moffatt, "Introduction," pp. 194 ff.

There are passages which seem to be quoted from the New Testament. Some of them I should not insist upon, because they may have been proverbial, and so used by the Lord Himself among the Jews.

The third does not contradict fundamental truth, but is wholly unworthy of our Lord and unlike His unique simplicity and depth, though suited to a rhetorical moralist. "Jesus saith, I stood in the midst of the world, and in the flesh was seen of them, and I found all drunken and none found I athirst among them; and my soul grieveth over the sons of men, because they are blind in their heart …"

Still stranger is the fourth. "Jesus saith, Wherever are … and one alone, I am with him. Raise the stone, and there thou shalt find me, split the wood and there am I." Assuming this to be the sense, what mystical jargon! Eph. 4:6, which the learned editors cite, refers to the Father: if they had alleged ver. 10, it might be more plausible perhaps. It seems nonsense, and assuredly was never uttered by our Lord.

315 Luke 11:49-51. — Cf. Matt. 23:34. This passage is considered by Afford to be a paraphrase of 2 Chron. 24:18-22; by Lindsay, as a paraphrase of Prov. 1:20-31. Cf. Job 12:13, Job 28:23; Prov. 8:22-31; Wisdom of Solomon, 7:27; Rom. 11:33, and 1 Cor. 1:24; also note 125 above (Luke 5:17).

Harnack supposes that an apocryphal Jewish writing is quoted ("Sayings," p. 103).