← §1 Read continuously §3 → Fragments on John · §2 · Theophilus of Alexandria
The Savior overturns an unlawful doctrine
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The author is introducing the fragment's comment on John 3, where Christ himself is said to overturn an unlawful doctrine.
In this Christ himself overturned an unlawful doctrine. For some people supposed that sinning souls are sent from heaven into a body for the sake of punishment, and that sometimes the soul is pre-existing by itself apart from the body.
Greek Jo , 3 Ἐν τούτῳ δὲ ἀνέτρεπεν αὐτὸς ὁ σωτὴρ δόγμα παράνομον.
ὑπονοούντων γάρ τινων ψυχὰς ἁμαρτανούσας ἐξ οὐρανοῦ τιμωρίας ἕνεκεν εἰς σῶμα
πέμπεσθαι καί ποτε μὲν καθ' ἑαυτὴν προϋπάρχουσαν τὴν ψυχὴν τοῦ σώματος
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About this text Theophilus says Christ's words on the man born blind refute the idea that souls live before the body and are sent into bodies for their sins.
Theophilus of Alexandria (c. 345–412) is the author of these fragments on John. They are not his fragments on Matthew.
He says the Savior overturns an unlawful teaching: that a soul sometimes exists before the body, and is joined to a body because of its own sins, so that a woman conceives only when some soul sins.
Christ answers, "Neither this man sinned nor his parents, but this happened so that the works of God might be revealed." The words are John 9:3; the manuscript's margin marks them "John 3", and the translation keeps that mark.
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