What are the agrapha?

Answer

The agrapha are typically known as the sayings attributed to Jesus Christ that are absent from the canonical gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John). The term agrapha means “unwritten” or “unrecorded.” Since the agrapha are not contained in a single, distinct work, but are instead sayings gathered from various sources—such as oral tradition, medieval liturgies, and Muslim literature—we cannot definitively determine if all the agrapha are canonical or in agreement with Scripture. Each saying must be examined individually and compared with Scripture.

The agrapha can be categorized into a few general groups. Firstly, there are sayings that, although not present in the gospels, are still attributed to Christ in other parts of the Bible. For instance, in Acts 20:35, Paul states, “In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said: ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’” The saying “It is more blessed to give than to receive” is credited to Christ, yet it is solely found here, in the book of Acts, and not in the gospels. However, since Acts is part of Scripture and the apostle Paul is the one quoting it, we can affirm that this Jesus’ quotation is canonical.

Another category of agrapha would encompass sayings ascribed to Christ that are essentially just summaries of teachings from the gospels. For example, in his first epistle, Clement of Rome wrote, “For thus He spoke: ‘Be ye merciful, that ye may obtain mercy; forgive, that it may be forgiven to you; as ye do, so shall it be done unto you; as ye judge, so shall ye be judged; as ye are kind, so shall kindness be shown to you; with what measure ye mete, with the same it shall be measured to you’” (chapter 13). This appears to be a condensed version of some teachings from the Sermon on the Mount. While Clement’s rephrasing is not canonical, it aligns with the teachings.

Things of Christ, being, as it is, a summary and condensation of some of Christ’s words from the canonical gospels.

A third category of agrapha might be supposed sayings of Christ that are at least “harmonious” with Scripture. These are not summaries or paraphrases of what Jesus actually said, but, at the same time, they do not conflict with Scripture. For example, this saying from the Coptic Apocryphal Gospels contains no erroneous doctrine: “Better is a single footstep in My Father’s house than all the wealth of this world.” We have no way of being certain whether such sayings were spoken by Christ or composed later and attributed to Him. If there is no conflict with Scripture, then agrapha of this type is, by definition, consistent with the Bible. But, since we have no proof such sayings are the actual words of Christ, we cannot consider them canonical.

Finally, we have the category of agrapha that includes sayings inconsistent with Scripture and which can therefore be rejected as actual sayings of Jesus. For example, the Gospel According to the Hebrews has Jesus making reference to “my mother the Holy Spirit”—words that are obviously incongruent with canonical revelation.

When we are confronted with any saying or idea that comes from a source outside of Scripture, it is always good practice to imitate the Bereans, who “received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true” «These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so. », (Acts 17:11). There are many purported “words of Christ” in circulation, but we must always compare what we hear and read with Scripture in order to determine the truth.