agraphon means any of the sayings of Jesus found in various ancient texts but not in the four Gospels. It carries an Arena rating of 1438, earned across 27 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, agraphon ranks #1,152 of 17,124 for Most Sublime Words, #1,635 of 17,151 for The Improbable, #2,128 of 17,104 for Most Storied Words, #2,497 of 17,138 for Most Incisive Words.
Why “agraphon” is a great word
AGRAPHON — [Noun] A saying attributed to Jesus of Nazareth that is preserved in ancient sources yet absent from the four canonical Gospels. From the Ancient Greek ᾰ̓́γρᾰφος (ágraphos, "unwritten, not registered"), from ἀ- (a-, "not") and γράφω (gráphō, "to write"). Unlike a logion (a general term for a sacred maxim that may be canonical) or an apocryphon (an entire non-canonical text), an agraphon is a singular, orphaned utterance—a stray fragment of potential scripture. It is the glint in a papyrus fragment, the echo in a patristic commentary, or the whisper from a desert father's sermon—a ghost of a gospel that was almost, but never quite, written.
Etymology
From Ancient Greek ᾰ̓́γρᾰφον (ắgrăphon), ᾰ̓́γρᾰφᾰ (ắgrăphă), inflection of ᾰ̓́γρᾰφος (ắgrăphos, “unwritten, not registered”).
noun
- Any of the sayings of Jesus found in various ancient texts but not in the four Gospels.
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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