Can Someone Help Track This Down For Me?

[Secret Alias]

From Robert Grant McQueen's Heresy and Criticism:

A Greek scholion, not certainly from Origen, ascribes to "a written account" the notion that the apostle John, "still alive under Nero, collected the written gospels and approved and recognized those which the plot of the devil had not touched but refused and rejected those which he knew did not contain the truth." [Origen Homilies on Luke 1, GCS 35, pp. 4-6. Perhaps Jerome preferred not to translate this story about John, though it was told by Eusebius, who insisted that it was "true" ( Church History 3. 24.7-8)]

I don't see it recorded here - https://books.google.com/books?id=GcXa_ ... ls&f=false

[Ben C. Smith]

From Robert Grant McQueen's Heresy and Criticism:

A Greek scholion, not certainly from Origen, ascribes to "a written account" the notion that the apostle John, "still alive under Nero, collected the written gospels and approved and recognized those which the plot of the devil had not touched but refused and rejected those which he knew did not contain the truth." [Origen Homilies on Luke 1, GCS 35, pp. 4-6. Perhaps Jerome preferred not to translate this story about John, though it was told by Eusebius, who insisted that it was "true" ( Church History 3. 24.7-8)]

I don't see it recorded here - https://books.google.com/books?id=GcXa_ ... ls&f=false

It is a little paragraph in Greek both in GCS 35 and in its replacement, GCS 49, which is available on the Internet Archive. Bottom of the Greek column on page 5 and top of the Greek column on page 6: https://archive.org/details/origeneswer ... 4/mode/2up. The source seems to be a manuscript called Vindobonensis 301 (Y in the apparatus), dated to century XI, according to the list on page LXVI: https://archive.org/details/origeneswer ... 9/mode/2up.

[Ben C. Smith]

Here is the text and the translation you gave from McQueen, to which I have added only the structure that was missing at the very beginning:

Λόγος ἐστὶ παραγραπτέος Ἰωάννην ἔτι περιόντα βίῳ ἐπὶ Νέρωνος τὰ συγγεγραμμένα εὐαγγέλια συναγαγεῖν, καὶ τὰ μὲν ἐγκρῖναι καὶ ἀποδέξασθαι, ὧν οὐδὲν ἡ τοῦ διαβόλου ἐπιβουλὴ καθήψατο, τὰ δὲ ἀπολέξασθαι καὶ καταργῆσαι, ὅσα μὴ τῆς ἀληθείας ἐχόμενα συνέγνω.

There is an account written down that John, still alive under Nero, collected the written gospels and approved and recognized those which the plot of the devil had not touched but refused and rejected those which he knew did not contain the truth.

[Secret Alias]

You are simply incredible. I can't thank you enough for this. Could it be Origen who wrote this? He comes close in some respects to saying this 'Acts of Timothy' like statement but never all the way?

[Ben C. Smith]

You are simply incredible. I can't thank you enough for this.

Well, thanks for that.

Could it be Origen who wrote this? He comes close in some respects to saying this 'Acts of Timothy' like statement but never all the way?

Hard to tell, at least with the information I have to hand right now. The manuscript appears to quote or at least refer to Origen more than once, since this paragraph's attribution to him depends upon the designation τοῦ αὐτοῦ ("of the same"), meaning that Origen has already been quoted or referred to at least once, and this is yet another quote attributed to him. It would be interesting, then, to see how valid the other quotation(s) of or reference(s) to him might be in this codex, but I do not have access to it.

[Secret Alias]

I've asked Tommy Wasserman about it's authenticity. He wrote a wonderful paper called the Wonderous Gospel of John with Jennifer Knust which he was nice enough to forward me and Mark Goodacre on Facebook. It's about the Acts of Timothy tradition. Really interesting stuff I think. Almost goes past other theories on the organization of the canon if Origen is acknowledged to be the source.