Sayings of Christ the Savior not recorded in the Gospel and His newly discovered sayings

Many grace-filled sayings of Christ the Savior were recorded and preserved for us by the evangelists, as unfalse witnesses of His earthly ministry - in any case, enough for our spiritual edification and salvation. But at the same time, there can be no doubt that the Four Gospels do not contain all the sayings and words of Jesus Christ. St. Evangelist John, at the conclusion of his Gospel, says that “Jesus did many other things; but if we were to write about this in detail, then, I think, the world itself would not be able to contain the books written,” and this testimony applies not only to deeds, but also to the words or sayings of deities. Teachers, and judging by the context of the speech - even more to words, since before that we are talking specifically about the sayings of Christ the Savior in His last conversation with his disciples. And besides, judging by simple human logic, it is impossible to assume that God. The Teacher, daily, never even to the point of forgetting about food and drink, teaching and edifying the masses of people who relentlessly followed Him, during the three and a half years of his ministry on earth, uttered only those sayings that were recorded by the evangelists and which are repeated many times in the Four Gospels. These speeches would not take more than a few weeks to deliver. Thus, there is a necessary assumption that, in addition to the sayings reported to us and recorded by the evangelists, “Jesus said many other things, and if they were written about them in detail, then the world itself would not be able to contain the books written.” This assumption was never denied by St. church, and on the contrary, she, reverently preserving the deposit of the recorded sayings of her divine Founder entrusted to her, at the same time, according to legend, preserved the memory of others - His sayings not recorded by the evangelists, which found a place in the testimony of her other teachers and ancient writers, especially since an example for the preservation of this kind of tradition was consecrated by the greatest preacher of Christianity, the Apostle Paul himself. In one place he cites as a saying of Christ a saying that is not found in the evangelists, and which, therefore, was preserved only in the memory of His disciples and followers. Thus, in his famous conversation with the elders of Ephesus, St. Paul said: “In everything I have shown you that, while you labor in this way, you must support the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus; for He Himself said: It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35). We would look in vain for this last saying in the Four Gospels: it is not there, and it was obviously borrowed by the Apostle from that vast source of stories that, even before the compilation of the canonical gospels, were preserved in the pious memory of Christians, as direct listeners of God. Teachers, and of which only a part was included in the Four Gospels. In view of this, it is not surprising that in subsequent times Christian curiosity repeatedly made attempts to collect these sayings of Christ the Savior, which were not included in the Four Gospels, and by the end of the 18th century even scientific studies about them began to appear. The first more or less thorough attempt in this regard belongs to Korner, who first introduced the term to designate this kind of sayings, calling them “agraphs”, i.e., “unwritten sayings,” in his essay “On the Unwritten Speeches of Christ,” published in Latin in 1776. 1 In this work, based on various sources, 16 such sayings are collected and subjected to scientific research. In more recent times, the study of "agraphs" was carried out by Hoffman in his "Life of Jesus according to the Apocrypha", 2 Westcott in his "Introduction to the Study of the Gospels", 3 Schaff in his "History of the Christian Church"; 4 but these researches regarding the unrecorded sayings of I. Christ reached their highest degree in the famous scientific studies of the Counts of Resch and Nestle. 5 Since the source for these agraphs is very uncertain, it is not surprising that all these learned researchers differ greatly: among themselves, both in their view of the very merits of the sayings and in their number. Thus, according to Resch’s research, there are only 14 unwritten sayings of Christ that can be considered authentic in their merits; Nestle gives 27, Hoffman - 23, Schaff - 24, Wescott - 32, and 11 of them are only variations of gospel sayings. Obviously, agreement is difficult to establish even regarding the number of sayings. Let us consider the very content of these sayings. One of these sayings, as stated above, has the authority of the apostle himself. Paul, and as it is written in St. book, although not in the Gospel, then it can no longer be classified as an agraf in the proper sense. This is the saying: “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35). It, according to Schaff’s fair review, is rich in inner meaning and among other agraphs shines like a radiant star. Other sayings, about the authenticity of which there is more or less agreement between learned researchers of agraphs, were preserved in the writings of ancient church teachers, such as Justin the Philosopher, Clement of Alexandria and others. In the “Conversation with Tryphon”, Justin the Philosopher quotes the saying of Christ: “In what I find you, in that I will judge you.” 6 Then Clement of Alexandria in his Stromata gives the following sayings: Jesus said to his disciples: “Ask great things and little things will be given to you, ask heavenly things and earthly things will be given to you.” 7 This saying in meaning fully corresponds to the Gospel saying: “Seek first the kingdom of God and all these things will be added to you” and is only a variation of it. In the same work of Clement of Alexandria it is also said: “It is fair, therefore, that Scripture, wanting to make us such dialecticians, exhorts us: be skillful money changers, 8 rejecting something, but retaining what is good.” 9 Some writers attribute this saying to St. Paul, others, like Clement of Alexandria, simply refer to it vaguely as Scripture; but Caesarea († 368) looks at it as a gospel saying, and then it is directly attributed to Christ the Savior by Origen, blessed. Jerome and others. Clement of Alexandria, as can be seen from his words cited, sees in him proof that according to St. According to Scripture, Christians must be skilled dialecticians, that is, people capable of examining things, testing powers and spirits, and thus ascending from external phenomena to the knowledge of God. It is repeatedly used in Clement's conversations regarding the duty to distinguish true scripture from false ones. 10 But the best commentary on it can be found in St. Paul, who says: “Test everything, hold on to what is good; abstain from all kinds of evil.” 11 In a word, just as money changers are skilled in distinguishing real coins from counterfeit ones, so Christians should be skilled in distinguishing between teachings and spirits - true from false. Next to these agraphs, which have more or less sufficient historical evidence for themselves, there are others that, although they do not have similar evidence for themselves, also bear in part the character of sayings preserved according to legend. So in the Beza code the following is given: “On the same day, seeing a man working on Saturday, Christ said to him: O man! If you know what you are doing, then you are blessed; but if you do not know, then you are cursed and a lawbreaker.” Many scientific researchers tend to see this saying as a true legend. As Westcott remarked, “it is obvious that this saying rests on some actual event.” According to another English commentator, Plumiter, this saying can be considered genuine, since “with miraculous power it shows the difference between the conscious violation of a law that is still recognized as mandatory, and the recognition of a higher law as abolishing a lower one.” Farrar, in his Life of Christ, believes that this story is too striking, too internally plausible, to be immediately rejected as inauthentic.” But Edersheim, in his Life of Jesus, considers these words to be a spurious addition to the true Gospel story in the Gospel. Luke VI chapter, where there is a discussion about the Sabbath. In the same codex of Beza on Matthew 20:28 the following lengthy reasoning is given, which has the character of a variation on the Gospel saying: “But try to grow from small things, and from small to large. When you go and are invited to dinner, do not sit in a higher place, lest a more respectable person come than you and, having invited you, approach and say to you: take a lower place, and you will be ashamed. But when you sit in a lower place, and a less venerable person comes, then the one who invited you will say to you: go higher, and it will be useful to you.” We find a variation of the same kind to the Gospel saying in Origen in his interpretation of the Gospel. Matthew. “This is what is written in the Gospel called Hebrews, if you wish to take it, not as authority, but as an explanation of the subject we are presenting. Another rich man said to Him: Master, what good must I do in order to live? He said to him: Man, fulfill the law and the prophets. The rich man answered Him: I have fulfilled them. He said to him: Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and come and follow Me. But the rich man began to scratch his head, because he did not like it. And the Lord said to him: How can you say that you have fulfilled the law and the prophets, when it is written in the law: love your neighbor as yourself, and now many of your brothers, the sons of Abraham, are dressed in dirty rags, dying of hunger, and your house is full of all sorts of goods, and none of them goes to the poor? And turning around, He said to His disciple Simon, who was sitting next to Him: Simon, son of John! It is easier for a camel to enter the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.” 12 Origen also cites another unwritten saying, which reads: “Jesus says: For those who were sick I was sick, for those who were hungry I was hungry, and for those who were thirsty I thirsted,” a saying that resonates with a purely evangelical spirit. 13 There is also a very interesting saying, the authenticity of which is confirmed by Origen in Latin and by Didymus in Greek. It reads: “Whoever is near Me is near the fire; whoever is far from Me is far from the kingdom.” In the message of St. Ignatius to the Smyrnans (chap. IV) contains a saying. very similar to this, at least in form: “he who is near the sword is near God,” and such learned scholars as Westcott and Lightfoot consider them parallel, but their meaning is undoubtedly different. This last saying contains encouragement to the martyrs for the faith, and contains the assurance that suffering and death lead closer to God, and the first expression may contain the thought that closeness to the Savior can, like fire, cleanse the soul and heart from false thoughts and unclean thoughts, just as fire cleanses gold from unsuitable impurities, and therefore whoever is far from the Savior and, therefore, is not exposed to this spiritually cleansing fire, he further from the kingdom of God. In any case, such a thought is given to the saying by the context of speech both in Origen and in Didymus. The first explains these words as follows: “And he who is near Me is near salvation, for he is near the fire; and he who hears My words and distorts what he hears becomes a vessel prepared for destruction, for being near Me means being near fire; but if anyone, out of fear that to be near Me means to be near fire, will stay away from Me so as not to be near fire, he will be far from the kingdom.” 14 Didymus interprets this saying with equal clarity: “The Lord is terrible, for He punishes those who resist Him. After all, the one who approaches Him, having received divine teaching, and then sins, finds himself near the fire. Therefore the Savior says: He who is near Me is near the fire; but whoever is far from Me is far from the kingdom.” 15 This saying, therefore, is similar to many of those Gospel sayings in which the double consequence of contact with Christ, as well as spiritual unity with Him in the Eucharist, which serves as salvation for some and condemnation for others, is exposed. In the “Apostolic Constitutions” we also read the following, not recorded in the Gospel, saying of the Savior: “Woe to those who have, and yet hypocritically take from others, who are able to help themselves, and yet want to take from others, for everyone will give an answer on the day of judgment.” This saying is, as it were, an addition or clarification of the Gospel saying: “Give to him who asks,” and therefore some scientific researchers consider it genuine. In the “Rules of St. Apostle” The Savior is also credited with the following saying: “The weak must be saved by the strong.” 16 There are unfortunately few factual grounds for recognizing the authenticity of this saying, and yet it resonates with complete plausibility and could well have been uttered by the divine Physician of souls and bodies, who came to heal the infirm and weak - the One who, being rich, became poor for our sake, died for us sinners and sent His disciples and Apostles for the spiritual strengthening of weak humanity, whom He made strong in spirit from the weak. To show how far one can go in finding agraphs, one can cite an as yet unwritten saying reported in the Talmud, 17 where the essence of the matter boils down to the following: in response to the question proposed by one of the disciples of I. Christ to Rabbi Eliezer about whether it is possible to make from the wages of a harlot, which according to the law of Moses was forbidden, along with the wages from a dog, into the house of the Lord (Deut. 23:18). the use of a latrine for the high priest, the rabbi could not answer, and then the disciple said to him: Jesus taught me this way on this subject; it is written: “She provided them with the gifts of fornication” (Mic. 1:7), that is, this money came from an unclean source, and therefore can be used for unclean use. – This saying clearly bears the imprint of Talmudic sophistry and therefore there can of course be no question of its authenticity. Several sayings attributed to Jesus Christ are finally preserved in the Koran and, in general, among Mohammedan writers; but they are even further from the true gospel character, although there are sayings among them that are distinguished by amazing wisdom. This is, for example, the saying cited by Schaff from the Koran: “Whoever strives to be rich is like a man who drinks sea water. The more he drinks, the stronger his thirst becomes, and he will never stop drinking until he dies.” 18 For all the depth of its meaning, this saying, however, rather resembles the usual current sayings of Eastern wisdom, and therefore one can hardly see in it any echo of a special Christian tradition. This is almost all that was hitherto known from the so-called agraphs, and it was difficult to expect that any other source of such sayings would be discovered. But in our century, already famous for numerous discoveries in the field of monuments of ancient writing, the most amazing surprises of all kinds are possible. To the numerous monuments of ancient Christian literature that have already been discovered in recent years, such as “The Teachings of the Twelve Apostles”, “The Gospel of Peter”, “The Acts of Apollonius the Philosopher”, etc., this year a new monument has been added, which, moreover, has the deepest interest, since in its content and in its appearance it takes us to the second century of the Christian era and promises to shed light on something that has not yet been sufficiently explained in the scientific sense history of the origin of the canonical gospels. This newly discovered document, which in the scientific world has already received the technical name Λόγια, i.e. “sayings of I. Christ,” contains a whole series of sayings of the Savior, which should be classified as agraphs, since they either are not found at all in the canonical Gospels, or are significantly different from the Gospel sayings. The site of the discovery of this new monument of Christian writing was Egypt, which has already given so many written treasures to the scientific world and, apparently, promises even more. On the edge of the Libyan Desert, 200 versts south of Cairo, a series of low mounds covered with fragments of Roman and ancient Arab pottery mark the place where the main city of the Oxyrhynchus nome once stood. It can be seen that the city once flourished, but after its conquest by the Arabs it quickly fell into decay and its current remnant, Benesa, is nothing more than a simple village. This once flourishing city of Oxyrhynchus naturally attracted the attention of researchers, and last winter excavations were carried out there by members of the English Society for the Exploration of Egypt, which resulted in the discovery of many papyrus scrolls, so that in addition to 150 scrolls handed over to the Egyptian government, as many as 280 boxes with scrolls were sent to London for the British Museum. Among these scrolls, in addition to the beginning of the Gospel of Matthew, there was another scattered sheet, which immediately attracted attention with its extraordinary content. This leaflet contains sayings in Greek that are attributed to I. Christ, and, moreover, those that are not in the Four Gospels. It is clear that these are new “agraphs” that were so carefully collected bit by bit from different sources. It is clear that learned researchers happily seized on this new monument, which was made available to everyone in an excellent publication by the English scientists Grenfell and Ghent. 19 The newly discovered monument was found at the very beginning of the excavations in a heap of garbage, in which there were generally many Greek papyri from the 1st-3rd centuries AD. According to the features of the letter, it belongs to this particular time, since the letters have the form of later Hellenistic uncials. But since the found sheet represents the rest of a book, and not a fragment of a papyrus scroll, and since, further, it contains abbreviations used in Christian manuscripts, such as IC, FS, etc., the publishers rightly attributed this monument to the second half of the 2nd century. As for the exterior of the monument, it is 5 ¾ inches high and 3 ¾ inches wide. Along the edges, as can be seen from the photograph attached below [see. p. 18], the sheet is very frayed, its very surface is extremely worn and has many tears and holes that make it difficult to read. A later hand on the reverse side of the sheet (verso) placed the Greek number IA above the right corner of the text, clearly indicating that this is the 11th sheet of the whole book. The very method of writing is archaic in nature: the lines are in continuous rows without any word separations or any other means that make it easier to read. When reproducing this monument, due to the mass of missing, destroyed or erased letters, it was necessary in many cases to resort to guesswork and assumptions, with which, however, it turned out to be impossible to fill in all the gaps. As can be seen from the accompanying reproduction of the original, the editors are careful to note gaps and suggested readings. Dots indicate completely destroyed letters, dots in brackets indicate that the number of destroyed letters can still be determined, dots under letters indicate the doubtfulness of their reproduction, and missing letters, which, however, could be filled in with certainty, are placed in brackets. The sheet in question contains 21 surviving lines on each page, and the 22nd line on both pages is completely destroyed. They contain seven or eight sayings of I. Christ, each of which begins with a significant introduction - Λέγει Ἰησοῦς - “Jesus Says”, which gave the publishers the right to call this entire monument - Λόγια Ἰησοῦ - “Sayings of Jesus”. Both in word formation itself and in spelling, the influence of common speech is noticeable. So twice vm. ε costs αι (line 6 and 7), three times vm. ι stands ει (pp. 13, 16, 35), which incidentally represents another new argument in favor of Reuchlin’s reading against Erasmus. Instead of the correct form of the participle past. committed time ᾠκοδομημένη stands for the irregular form οἰκοδομημένη, which form, however, is also found in some other monuments of ancient writing. 20 For a visual acquaintance with the newly discovered monument, we attach here a photograph from it, as well as a transcription of it in archaic and modern Greek letters, with the addition of an interlinear Russian translation of each saying. Transcription of both pages of the newly discovered monument in the most likely reading Here are these sayings, in interlinear Russian translation: 1. αδελφοῦ σου. “And then you will see how to take out the speck that is in your brother’s eye.” 2. τὴν βασιλείαν τοῦ Θεοῦ καὶ ἐὰν μὴ σαββατίσητε τὸν σάββατον οὐκ ὄψεσθε τὸν Πατέρα. “Jesus says: If you do not fast for peace, you will not find the kingdom of God; and if you do not keep the Sabbath, you will not see the Father.” 3. Λέγει Ἰη[σ]οῦς Ἒστην ἐν μέσῳ τοῦ κόσμου, καὶ ἐν σαρκί ὤφθην αὐτοῖς, καὶ εὗρον πάντας μεθύοντας, καὶ οὐδένα εὗρον διψῶντα ἐν αὐτοῖς· καὶ πονεῖ ἡ ψυχή μου ἐπὶ τοῖς υἱοῖς τῶν ἀνθρώπων, ὅτι τυφλοί εἰσιν τῇ καρδίᾳ αὐτῶ[ν]. . . . “Jesus says: I stood in the midst of the world, and was seen by them in the flesh, and I found them all drunk, and I found no one thirsty among them, and my soul is sorrowful for the sons of men, for they are blind in their hearts. . . » 5. Λέγει Ἰησοῦς· Ὅπου ἐὰν ὧσιν [...] ε [...] θεοὶ καὶ τῷ [...] σο ... ε [...] ἐστιν μόνος [...] τω ἐγώ εἰμι μετ’ αὐτ[οῦ]. Ἔγει[ρ]ον τὸν λίθον, κάκεῖ εὑρήσεις με. σχίσον τὸ ξύλον, κα’γὼ ἐϰεῖ εἰμί. “Jesus says: if anywhere ... there is one; then I am with him. Lift up the stone and there you will find Me; split the tree, and I am there.” 6. αὐτ[ο]ῦ, οὐδὲ ἰατρὸς ποιεῖ θεραπείας εἰς τούς γινώσκοντας αὐτόν. “Jesus says: A prophet is not accepted in his own country, and a physician does not perform healings for those who know him.” 7. Λέγει Ἰησοῦς Πόλις οἰκοδομημένη ἐπ’ ἄκρον [ὄ]ρους ὑψηλού καὶ ἐστηριγμένη, οὔτε πε[σ]εῖν δύναται οὔτε κρυ(β)ῆναι. “Jesus says: a city built on a high mountain and fortified can neither fall nor be hidden.” 8. “Jesus says: Do you hear in... yours...” Now the question naturally arises: what kind of works does this monument belong to, and what significance can it have for the question of the origin of the canonical gospels? The first question can be partly answered by critically examining the sayings contained in the monument. The first of these sayings, which reads (lines 1-4): “And then you will see how to remove the speck that is in your brother’s eye,” does not present any difficulty in interpretation. This is obviously a variation on the Gospel saying in Matthew 7:3–5 and especially Luke 6:42, where there is an almost literally identical expression: “and then you will see how to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.” Since this saying is only an excerpt in the newly discovered monument, it is possible to assume that the previous page also contained this entire saying of the Savior about the hypocritical sight of specks in the eye of our neighbor, although at the same time we do not see even a log in ourselves. More peculiar is the second saying (4-11), which reads: “Jesus says: Unless you fast for the world, 21 you will not find the kingdom of God, and unless you keep the Sabbath, you will not see the Father.” This saying does not find a direct parallel in the Four Gospels, and some researchers are inclined to see in it a counterfeit of the teachings of Christ in the interests of some heresy, for example. Encratites, or at least Judaizing Christians, since the legalistic element is strongly emphasized in it, and the very achievement of the kingdom of God and closest communication with the Heavenly Father is made dependent on the observance of fasting and the Sabbath. But this explanation hardly withstands even lenient criticism. As for fasting as a condition for receiving the kingdom of heaven, this is in full agreement with the great importance that Christ attached to fasting and, in general, withdrawal from the world in the matter of moral perfection and salvation. It is somewhat more difficult to understand the meaning of the second half of the saying - about the Sabbath. But if we consider that the expression “keeping the Sabbath” may well be understood in the sense of renunciation from the world in order to devote oneself entirely to God on the seventh day, there will be no need to make vain assumptions that the imprint of some foreign influence lies on this saying. In any case, we read something similar from Justin the Philosopher, who says: “The new law requires you to observe a permanent Sabbath. Those who have repented of their sins, keep God’s sweet and true Sabbath.” 22 Third saying (pp. 11-21): “Jesus says: I stood in the midst of the world, I was seen by them in the flesh, and I found them all drunk, and I found no one thirsty among them, and my soul is sorrowful for the sons of men, for they are blind in their hearts.” This saying, although in individual expressions it may find parallels in the New Testament, in general it seems completely new, and one can only say about it that it sharply depicts the morally disastrous state in which the human race found itself during the earthly life of Christ the Savior, who appeared in the flesh for its redemption from sin and death. From the fourth saying, probably covering 22, 23 lines, one complete word has been preserved (τὴν πτωχείν - “poverty”), which does not make it possible to reproduce its content and meaning. 23 The fifth saying (23–30) has also been preserved in a rather destroyed form, but can roughly be translated as follows: “Jesus says: if anywhere... there is one..., then I am with him. Lift up the stone and there you will find Me; split the tree, and I am there.” In this saying, some researchers tend to see a kind of pantheistic thought - about the pervasiveness of the divine. entities around the world. But such an assumption can hardly withstand criticism, and, on the contrary, this saying finds a sufficient parallel in the Gospel saying that “where two or three are gathered in My name, there I am in the midst of them,” especially since this Gospel saying by Ephraim the Syrian reads almost identically with the first half of the saying in the monument in question. There we read: “Where there is one, I am there; where there are two, I will be there, and then there will be three of us.” As for the second half of the saying, its meaning is quite clear. If the Savior promises his fellowship even with a small gathering of believers, even to a single believer, then in the second half it is only indicated that this fellowship is not determined by any external position of a person: it is equally accessible to all people - a mason moving stones, or a carpenter chopping or splitting logs. The last expression receives a particularly significant meaning from the lips of One who himself was a carpenter or the son of a carpenter. The sixth saying (30–35) has been preserved intact, which reads: “Jesus says: A prophet is not accepted in his own country, and a physician does not perform healings for those who know him.” In its first half, this saying finds a close parallel in St. Luke 6:24: “No prophet is accepted in his own country.” As for the second half, the meaning of this saying is only an explanation of the same idea with another clear example, namely, that like a prophet, a doctor can act successfully only in an environment where he is known only as a doctor, and not as a simple person with all his weaknesses and, perhaps, with his low origins from a slave state, as was often the case in ancient times. Seventh saying (pp. 36–41). “Jesus says: A city built on the top of a high mountain and fortified can neither fall nor be hidden.” This saying again finds a close parallel in the Gospel, namely Matt. 5:14 and 7:25: “the city that stands on the top of the mountain cannot be hidden,” “(the house) did not fall, because it was founded on a rock.” The thought is the same, only given a slightly different form of expression. Finally, from the eighth saying (pp. 41 et seq.) only the beginning remains: “Jesus says: do you hear...”. The end is completely destroyed and there is no possibility of restoring it. 24 From the presented brief analysis of the newly discovered sayings, it is thus clear that in their external form these are, indeed, “agraphs,” i.e., sayings not recorded in the canonical gospels, attributed to the Savior, and in their meaning, some of them find direct parallels in the canonical gospels, some can be consistent with them and in any case do not contradict the spirit of the teaching of Christ. We are dealing with only one torn off sheet 11, which contains eight sayings. If this number is taken as the norm for each sheet, then the previous ten sheets of the book should contain up to 80 sayings. How many sheets were there in the whole book? This question remains unanswered for now, although there is no need to despair in view of the fact that the mass of the found manuscripts has not yet been sorted out and that perhaps there will be other leaves from the same book - if not in the material already found, then during subsequent excavations, which will undoubtedly intensify in view of such a happy and rich discovery. Now we can only assume that the monument in question belonged to a voluminous collection of sayings of the Savior, a collection that takes us almost back to the times of the apostles. Although the newly discovered monument dates back only to the second half of the 2nd century, no one can claim that it is an original and not a copy from some even more ancient monument. As for now the question of what significance a newly discovered monument can have in explaining the historical origin of the canonical gospels, so far we are dealing with only one scattered sheet and, moreover, requiring careful study from different sides - it is impossible to say anything definite. Of course, the Western critical school, which excels in inventing all sorts of conjectures, hypotheses and theories of all kinds in this regard, grabbed hold of this monument with nervous fervor, wanting to find in it confirmation of its hypotheses. Learned critics pounced on this monument, in the words of Emperor Tiberius, positively, like flies on a wound, and such luminaries of Western scholarship as Harnack, Heinrici, Sweet, Harris and many other specialists on the subject of ancient Christian writing, each of whom came out with his own favorite tendency, hastened to speak out about it. We completely understand this feverish nervousness of Western critical scholarship in its attitude towards the newly discovered monument. The so-called “criticism” has recently become so entangled in its scientific-critical constructions that, having lost ground, it must constantly fear that any new discovery of real historical significance may immediately destroy these constructions, as has partly happened before. Therefore, with every new discovery in this area, a fatal question arises for criticism: to be, or not to be? - and this question is the reason for all this feverish nervousness in relation to newly discovered monuments. But for this reason we do not need to present all the hastily expressed opinions of learned critics, especially while they have not yet come to any agreement among themselves, and it is enough to confine ourselves to a brief presentation of the opinion of the learned publishers of the monument themselves, especially since their opinion is relatively the calmest and based on immediate impressions. First of all, when examining the newly discovered monument, the thought comes to mind: is the found sheet not part of one of those apocryphal gospels that existed in large numbers in antiquity and constituted a counterfeit of the true Gospels in the interests of various sects and parties? It is known that there was also a so-called “gospel of the Egyptians,” and since the monument was found in Egypt, the thought naturally arises whether it is a fragment of this gospel. This apocryphal gospel, from which several extracts have come down to us, was probably written at the beginning of the second century and apparently enjoyed high respect in Egypt, but in the third century it was rejected as unjust. It coincides in time with this monument, but there are so many significant differences between them that it is impossible to identify them. The Egyptian Gospel is a narrative book, and the newly discovered monument is a bare collection of sayings without any narrative connection between them, and, moreover, the form of the introductory expressions: “Jesus speaks” clearly indicates that we are not dealing with a narrative creation that requires a past form of expression, but with a collection of sayings written down, so to speak, at the very moment of their utterance. 25 – In this case, isn’t it easier to look at the newly discovered monument as a simple, direct collection of sayings of the Savior without any connection with the circumstances of their utterance? The external character of the monument most closely corresponds to this type, and it is not alone in ancient Christian literature. Something similar is the work of Papias, “The Sayings of the Lord,” on which he wrote an interpretation, and he probably means a similar collection by the “Sayings” - Λόγια - which, according to his testimony, were written by St. Matthew in Hebrew. 26 Hitherto there was much disagreement among learned researchers regarding how to understand these Λόγια, the testimony of which was compiled by St. Matthew attached so much importance to the question of the origin of both his and the first three, so-called synoptic gospels. Now the newly discovered monument may shed significant light on this issue, as long as further research does not undermine the historical significance of the monument itself. Without entering into a further consideration of the monument, we, for our part, can only say that if it produces such feverish nervousness among the Protestant-critical school in the West, trying to find in it confirmation of its favorite tendencies, then our Orthodox theological science can treat it completely calmly, in full confidence that if this monument really has historical authenticity, then it cannot be in conflict with either the Four Gospels itself or with the established tradition of the origins of the canonical gospels. As far as a brief examination of its content shows, this contradiction does not appear, since those sayings that apparently represent something new in comparison with the Gospel sayings are completely reconcilable with the latter in their spirit and internal meaning. Therefore, it would not be irreverent to assume that in the newly discovered monument we have a record of the sayings of God. Teacher, made by one of His direct listeners - either directly under their living impression, or still under a fresh memory of them - so, however, still fresh that time itself from the present did not have time to turn into the past, and in the opinion of the pious collector of the sayings of God. The teacher still seemed to be speaking, which may explain the real form of the verb: “Jesus speaks” (and not “said” or “said”). In any case, this idea has direct evidence for itself. Luke, who in the introduction to his Gospel directly says that many already before him “began to compose narratives about events that were completely known among us.” He speaks of “narratives,” but this evidence is equally applicable to those Λόγια, which were an even simpler and more direct way of recording than a more or less coherent narrative, and the unknown author of the newly discovered monument could have belonged to the number of such many narrators. If so, then the relationship of this monument to the canonical Gospels is determined by itself. It may represent one of these many raw materials that passed from hand to hand among Christian believers either even before the appearance of the canonical Gospels, or even after their appearance - where they had not yet received widespread distribution, and of these materials, only that which, purified by the all-enlightening Spirit of God from all human admixture, was included in our canonical Gospels, was recorded by the divinely inspired evangelists as the true word of our Lord Jesus Christ, sufficient for our edification. See also Orthodox Theological Encyclopedia or Theological Encyclopedic Dictionary. (ed. A. Lopukhin) Volume I, article “Agraphs” https://azbyka.ru/otechnik/Lopuhin/pravoslavnaja-bogoslovskaja-entsiklopedija-ili-bogoslovskij-entsiklopedicheskij-slovar-tom-1/137 J. G. Korner, De sermonibus Christi άγραφοις, Leipzig. 1776. Hofmann, Lehen Jesu nach Apocryphen. 1851. Westcott, Introduction to the study of the Gospels, 1860. Schaff, History of the Christian Church, vol, I, 882. Resch, Agrapha, 1889 and Nestle, Novi Testamenti Graeci Supplementum. 1896. The most recent study of this kind was published by Ropes, Die Sprüche Jesu, 1896. Γίγεσθε [Γίνεσθε] δόκιμοι τραπεζῖται Clem. Hom, II, 50; III, 51. Orig. in Matt. Lat. Comment. 15, 14. That ἀσθενὲς διὰ τοῦ ἰσχυροῦ σωωθήσεται. Aboda Zara, f. 17, col. 1, 2. Schaff, History of the Chr. Church, I, pp. 162–7, where agraphs are generally stated. Λόγια Ἰησού. Sayings of our Lord from an early Greek papyrus. Discovered and edited, with translation and commentary by B. P. Grenfell and A. S. Hunt. With two plates (Egypt Exploration Fund). London, H. Frowde 1897. The text contains an unusual combination of words: νηστεύειν τόν κόσμον, which makes accurate translation difficult. Some researchers, however, see in these destroyed lines not a special saying, but only the conclusion of the previous third saying and fill the gap in this way: “My soul grieves for the sons of men, for they are blind in their hearts... (and do not know their) poverty.” In this case, this saying could have a parallel in Rev. 3:17; “You do not know that you are poor and blind and naked.” Scientific researchers, however, have made several bold guesses to complement this saying. So prof. Sweet believes that the word ἀκούεις was probably followed by εἰς τὸ ἔν ὤτιον σοῦ, so that the whole saying would mean: “what do you hear in your one ear,” followed by an additional sentence, like: “be deaf to this in your other ear.” A very clever guess! Various researchers, in an attempt to explain to themselves one way or another this fragmentary form of the “Aboutions,” have resorted to all sorts of assumptions, of which one can note Redpas’s assumption in September. book of the English magazine “Expositor”. According to this learned researcher, these sayings could have been taken from the court record compiled by the Pharisees on the basis of the testimony of their spies and various witnesses regarding what the hated Teacher of Nazareth said and taught. This assumption rests on the testimony of Ev. Luke, that the Jewish authorities actually sent their spies to Him in order to overhear His sayings and, on the basis of them, bring Him to trial (Luke 20:20). Such protocol records could later be included in some apocryphal gospel, to which the found sheet of “sayings” probably belongs. – This opinion is not without a certain wit, but unfortunately it rests entirely on such a shaky foundation as an assumption. This testimony of Papias (Ar. Eus. N. E. III, 39) says "Matthew wrote sayings in Hebrew, which everyone interpreted, as best I could"). You might be interested in: