Chapter VIII: Part II: The Lost Petrine Gospels (3)

Mark xiv. 51, 52. The account of the young man following, having the linen cloth cast about his naked body, who, when caught, left the linen cloth in the hands of his captors and ran off naked—an account which so unmistakably exhibits the narrative to have been the record of some eye‐ witness of the scene, is omitted in St. Matthew. On this no stress, however, can be laid. The deutero‐Matthew may have thought the incident too unimportant to be mentioned.

Enough has been said to show conclusively that the deutero‐Matthew, if we may so term the compiler of the first Canonical Gospel, had not St. Mark’s Gospel before him when he wrote his own, that he did not cut up the Gospel of Mark, and work the shreds into his own web.

Both Gospels are mosaics, composed in the same way. But the Gospel of St. Mark was composed only of the “recollections” of St. Peter, whereas that of St. Matthew was more composite. Some of the pieces which were used by Mark were used also by the deutero‐Matthew. This is patent: how it was so needs explanation.

It is probable that when the apostles founded churches, their instructions on the sayings and doings of Jesus were taken down, and in the absence of the apostles were read by the president of the congregation. The Epistles which they sent were, we know, so read,(277) and were handed on from one church to another.(278) But what was far more precious to the early believers than any letters of the apostles about the regulation of controversies, were their recollections of the Lord, their Memorabilia, as Justin calls them. The earliest records show us the Gospels read at the celebration of the Eucharist.(279) The ancient Gospels were not divided into chapters, but into the portions read on Sundays and festivals, like our “Church Services.” Thus the Peschito version in use in the Syrian churches was divided in this manner: “Fifth day of the week of the Candidates” (Matt. ix. 5‐17), “For the commemoration of the Dead” (18‐26), “Friday in the fifth week in the Fast” (27‐38), “For the commemoration of the Holy Apostles” (36‐38, x. 1‐15), “For the commemoration of Martyrs” (16‐33), “Lesson for the Dead” (34‐42), “Oblation for the beheading of John” (xi. 1‐15), “Second day in the third week of the Fast” (16‐24).

To these fragmentary records St. Luke alludes when he says that “many had taken in hand to arrange in a consecutive account (ἀνατάξασθαι διήγησιν) those things which were most fully believed” amongst the faithful. These he “traced up from the beginning accurately one after another” (παρηκολουθηκότι ἄνωθεν πᾶσιν ἀκριβῶς καθεξῆς). Here we have clearly the existence of records disconnected originally, which many strung together in consecutive order, and St. Luke takes pains, as he tells us, to make this order chronological.

Some Churches had certain Memorabilia, others had a different set. That of Antioch had the recollections of St. Peter, that of Jerusalem the recollections of St. James, St. Simeon and St. Jude. St. Luke indicates the source whence he drew his account of the nativity and early years of the Lord,—the recollections of St. Mary, the Virgin Mother, communicated to him orally. He speaks of the Blessed Virgin as keeping the things that happened in her heart and pondering on them.(280) Another time it is contemporaries, Mary certainly included.(281) On both occasions it is in reference to events connected with our Lord’s infancy. Why did he thus insist on her having taken pains to remember these things? Surely to show whence he drew his information. He narrates these events on the testimony of her word; and her word is to be relied on; for these things, he assures us, were deeply impressed on her memory.

The “Memorabilia” in use in the different Churches founded by the apostles would probably be strung together in such order as they were generally read. How early the Church began to have a regulated order of seasons, an ecclesiastical year, cannot be ascertained with certainty; but every consideration leads us to suspect that it grew up simultaneously with the constitution of the Church. With the Church of the Hebrews this was unquestionably the case. The Jews who believed had grown up under a system of fasts and festivals in regular series, and, as we know, they observed these even after they were believers in Christ. Paul, who broke with the Law in so many points, did not venture to dispense with its sacred cycle of festivals. He hasted to Jerusalem to attend the feast of Pentecost.(282) At Ephesus, even, he observed it.(283) St. Jerome assures us that Lent was instituted by the apostles.(284) The Apostolic Constitutions order the observance of the Sabbath, the Lord’s‐day, Pentecost, Christmas, Epiphany, the days of the Apostles, that of St. Stephen, and the anniversaries of the Martyrs.(285) Indeed, the observance of the Lord’s‐day, instituted probably by St. Paul, involves the principle which would include all other sacred commemorations; for if one day was to be set apart as a memorial of the resurrection, it is probable that others would be observed in memory of the nativity, the passion, the ascension, &c.

As early as there was any sort of ecclesiastical year observed, so early would the “Memorabilia” of the apostles be arranged as appropriate to these seasons. But such an arrangement would not be chronological; therefore many took in hand, as St. Luke tells us, to correct this, and he took special care to give the succession of events as they occurred, not as they were read, by obtaining information from the best sources available.

It is probable that the “Recollections” of St. Peter, written in disjointed notes by St. Mark, were in circulation through many Churches before St. Mark composed his Gospel out of them. From Antioch to Rome they were read at the celebration of the divine mysteries; and some of them, found in the Churches of Asia Minor, have been taken by St. Luke into his Gospel. Others circulating in Palestine were in the hands of the deutero‐ Matthew, and grafted into his compilation. But as St. Luke, St. Mark, and the composer of the first Gospel, acted independently, their chronological sequences differ. Their Gospels are three kaleidoscopic groups of the same pieces.(286)

Had St. Matthew any other part in the composition of the first Canonical Gospel than contributing to it his “Syntax of the Lord’s Sayings”? Of that we can say nothing for certain. It is possible enough that many of the “doings” of Jesus contained in the Gospel may be memorabilia of St. Matthew, circulating in _anecdota_.

A critical examination of St. Matthew’s Gospel reveals _four_ sources whence it was drawn, three threads of different texture woven into one. These are:

1. The “Memorabilia” of St. Peter, used afterwards by St. Mark. These the compiler of the first Gospel attached mechanically to the rest of his material by such formularies as “in those days,” “at that time,” “then,” “after that,” “when he had said these things.”

2. The “Logia of the Lord,” composed by St. Matthew.

3. Another series of sayings and doings, from which the following passages were derived: iii. 7‐10, 12, iv. 3‐11, viii. 19‐22, ix. 27, 32‐34, xi. 2‐19. Some of these were afterwards used by St. Luke.(287) Were these by St. Matthew? It is possible.

4. To the fourth category belong chapters i. and ii., iii. 3, xiv. 15, the redaction of iv. 12, 13, 14, 15, v. 1, 2, 19, vii. 22, 23, viii. 12, 17, x. 5, 6, xi. 2, xii. 17‐21, xiii. 35‐43, 49, 50, the redaction of xiv. 13_a_, xiv. 28‐31, xv. 24, xvii. 24_b_‐27, xix. 17_a_, 19_b_, 28, xx. 16, xxi. 2, 7, xxi. 4, 5, xxiii. 10, 13, 15, 23, 25, 27, 29, 35, the redaction of xxiv. 3, 20, 51_b_, xxv. 30_b_, xxvi. 2, 15, 25, xxvii. 51‐53, xxvii. 62‐66, xxviii. 1_a_, 2‐4, 8, 9, 11‐15.

Was this taken from a collection of the recollections of St. Matthew, and the series 3 from another set of Apostolic Memorabilia? That it is not possible to decide.

Into the reasons which have led to this separation of the component parts 3, 4, the peculiarities of diction which serve to distinguish them, we cannot enter here; it would draw us too far from the main object of our inquiry.(288)

The theory that the Synoptical Gospels were composed of various disconnected materials, variously united into consecutive biographies, was accepted by Bishop Marsh, and it is the only theory which relieves the theologian from the unsatisfactory obligation of making “harmonies” of the Gospels. If we adopt the received popular conception of the composition of the Synoptical Gospels, we are driven to desperate shifts to fit them together, to reconcile their discrepancies.

The difficulty, the impossibility, of effecting such a harmony of the statements of the evangelists was felt by the early Christian writers. Origen says that the attempt to reconcile them made him giddy. Among the writings of Tatian was a Diatessaron or harmony of the Gospels. Eusebius adventured on an explanation, “of the discords of the Evangelists.” St. Ambrose exercised his pen on a concordance of St. Matthew with St. Luke; St. Augustine wrote “De consensu Evangelistarum,” and in his effort to force them into agreement was driven to strange suppositions—as that when our Lord went through Jericho there was a blind man by the road‐side leading into the city, and another by the road‐side leading out of it, and that both were healed under very similar circumstances.

Apollinaris, in the famous controversy about Easter, declared that it was irreconcilable with the Law that Christ should have suffered on the great feast‐day, as related by St. Matthew, but that the Gospels disagreed among themselves on the day upon which he suffered.(289) The great Gerson sought to remove the difficulties in a “Concordance of the Evangelists,” or “Monotessaron.”

Such an admission as that the Synoptical Gospels were composed in the manner I have pointed out, in no way affects their incomparable value. They exhibit to us as in a mirror what the apostles taught and what their disciples believed. Faith does not depend on the chronological sequence of events, but on the verity of those events. “See!” exclaimed St. Chrysostom, “how through the contradictions in the evangelical history in minor particulars, the truth of the main facts transpires, and the trustworthiness of the authors is made manifest!”

In everything, both human and divine, there is an union of infallibility in that which is of supreme importance, and of fallibility in that which concerns not salvation. The lenses through which the light of the world shone to remote ages were human scribes liable to error. Θεῖα πάντα καὶ ἀνθρώπινα πάντα, was the motto Tholuck inscribed on his copy of the Sacred Oracles.

Having established the origin of the Gospel of St. Matthew, we are able now to see our way to establishing that of the Gospel of the Twelve, or Gospel of the Hebrews.

No doubt it also was a mosaic made out of the same materials as the Gospel of St. Matthew. There subsisted side by side in Palestine a Greek‐speaking and an Aramaic‐speaking community of Christians, the one composed of proselytes from among the Gentiles, the other of converts from among the Jews. This Gentile Church in Palestine was scarcely influenced by St. Paul; it was under the rule of St. Peter, and therefore was more united to the Church at Jerusalem in habits of thought, in religious customs, in reverence for the Law, than the Churches of “Asia” and Greece. There was no antagonism between them. There was, on the contrary, close intercourse and mutual sympathy.

Each community, probably, had its own copies of Apostolic Memorabilia, not identical, but similar. Some of the “recollections” were perhaps written only in Aramaic, or only in Greek, so that the collection of one community may have been more complete in some particulars than the collection of the other. The necessity to consolidate these Memorabilia into a consecutive narrative became obvious to both communities, and each composed “in order” the scraps of record of our Lord’s sayings and doings they possessed and read in their sacred mysteries. St. Matthew’s “Logia of the Lord” was used in the compilation of the Hebrew Gospel; one of the translations of it, which, according to Papias, were numerous, formed the basis also of the Greek Gospel.

The material used by both communities, the motive actuating both communities, were the same; the results were consequently similar. That they were not absolutely identical was the consequence of their having been compiled independently.

Thus the resemblance was sufficient to make St. Jerome suppose the Hebrew Gospel to be the same as the Greek first Gospel; nevertheless, the differences were as great as has been pointed out in the preceding pages.

II. The Clementine Gospel.

We have now considered all the fragments of the Gospel of the Hebrews that have been preserved to us in the writings of Justin Martyr, Origen, Jerome and Epiphanius.

But there is another storehouse of texts and references to a Gospel regarded as canonical at a very early date by the Nazarene or Ebionite Church. This storehouse is that curious collection of the sayings and doings of St. Peter, the Clementine Recognitions and Homilies.

That the Gospel used by the author or authors of the Clementines was that of the Hebrews cannot be shown; but it is probable that it was so.

The Clementines were a production of the Judaizing party in the Primitive Church, and it was this party which, we know, used the Gospel of the Twelve, or of the Hebrews.

The doctrine in the Clementine Recognitions and Homilies bears close relations to that of the Jewish Essenes. The sacrificial system of the Jewish Church is rejected. It was not part of the revelation to Moses, but a tradition of the elders.(290)

Distinction in meats is an essential element of religion. Through unclean meats devils enter into men, and produce disease. To eat of unclean meats places men in the power of evil spirits, who lead them to idolatry and all kinds of wickedness. So long as men abstain from these, so long are the devils powerless against them.(291)

The observance of times is also insisted on—times at which the procreation of children is lawful or unlawful; and disease and death result from neglect of this distinction. “In the beginning of the world men lived long, and had no diseases. But when through carelessness they neglected the observance of the proper times ... they placed their children under innumerable afflictions.”(292) It is this doctrine that is apparently combated by St. Paul.(293) He relaxes the restraints which Nazarene tradition imposed on marital intercourse.

The rejection of sacrifices obliged the Nazarene Church to discriminate between what is true and false in the Scriptures; and, with the Essenes, they professed liberty to judge the Scriptures and reject what opposed their ideas. Thus they refused to acknowledge that “Adam was a transgressor, Noah drunken, Abraham guilty of having three wives, Jacob of cohabiting with two sisters, Moses was a murderer,” &c.(294)

The moral teaching of the Clementines is of the most exalted nature. Chastity is commended in a glowing, eloquent address of St. Peter.(295) Poverty is elevated into an essential element of virtue. Property is, in itself, an evil. “To all of us possessions are sins. The deprivation of these is the removal of sins.” “To be saved, no one should possess anything; but since many have possessions, or, in other words, sins, God sends, in love, afflictions ... that those with possessions, but yet having some measure of love to God, may, by temporary inflictions, be saved from eternal punishments.”(296)

“Those who have chosen the blessings of the future kingdom have no right to regard the things here as their own, since they belong to a foreign king (_i.e._ the prince of this world), with the exception only of water and bread, and those things procured by the sweat of the brow, necessary for the maintenance of life, and also one garment.”(297)

Thus St. Peter is represented as living on water, bread and olives, and having but one cloak and tunic.(298) And Hegesippus, as quoted by Eusebius, describes St. James, first bishop of Jerusalem, as “drinking neither wine nor fermented liquors, and abstaining from animal food. A razor never came upon his head, he never anointed himself with oil, and never used a bath. He never wore woollen, but linen garments.”(299)

The Ebionites looked upon Christ as the Messiah rather than as God incarnate. They gave him the title of Son of God, and claimed for him the highest honour, but hesitated to term him God. In their earnest maintenance of the Unity of the Godhead against Gnosticism, they shrank from appearing to divide the Godhead. Thus, in the Clementines, St. Peter says, “Our Lord neither asserted that there were gods except the Creator of all, nor did he proclaim himself to be God, but he pronounced him blessed who called him the Son of that God who ordered the universe.”(300)

The Ebionitism of the Clementines is controversial. It was placed face to face with Gnosticism. Simon Magus, the representative of Gnosticism, as St. Peter is the representative of orthodoxy, in the Recognitions and Homilies, contends that the God of the Jews, the Demiurge, the Creator of the world, is evil. He attempts to prove this by showing that the world is full of pain and misery. The imperfections of the world are tokens of imperfection in the Creator. He takes the Old Testament. He shows from texts that the God of the Jews is represented as angry, jealous, repentant; that those whom He favours are incestuous, adulterers, murderers.

This doctrine St. Peter combats by showing that present evils are educative, curative, disguised blessings; and by calling all those passages in Scripture which attribute to God human passions, corruptions of the sacred text in one of its many re‐editions. “God who created the world has not in reality such a character as the Scriptures assign Him,” says St. Peter; “for such a character is contrary to the nature of God, and therefore manifestly is falsely attributed to Him.”(301)

From this brief sketch of the doctrines of the Ebionite Church from which the Clementines emanated, it will be seen that its Gospel must have resembled that of the Hebrews, or have been founded on it. The “Recollections of the Twelve” probably existed in several forms, some more complete than others, some purposely corrupted. The Gospel of the Hebrews was in use in the orthodox Nazarene Church. The Gospel used by the author of the Clementines was in use in the same community. It is therefore natural to conclude their substantial identity.

But though substantially the same, and both closely related to the Canonical Gospel of St. Matthew, they were not completely identical; for the Clementine Gospel diverged from the received text of St. Matthew more widely than we are justified in concluding did that of the Gospel of the Hebrews.

That it was in Greek and not in Hebrew is also probable. The converts to Christianity mentioned in the Recognitions and Homilies are all made from Heathenism, and speak Greek. It is at Caesarea, Tripolis, Laodicaea, that the churches are established which are spoken of in these books,—churches filled, not with Jews, but with Gentile converts, and therefore requiring a Gospel in Greek.

The Clementine Gospel was therefore probably a sister compilation to that of the Hebrews and of St. Matthew. The Memorabilia of the Apostles had circulated in Hebrew in the communities of pure Jews, in Greek in those of Gentile proselytes. These Memorabilia were collected into one book by the Hebrew Church, by the Nazarene proselytes, and by the compiler of the Canonical Gospel of St. Matthew. This will explain their similarity and their differences.

From what has been said of the Clementines, it will be seen that their value is hardly to be over‐estimated as a source of information on the religious position of the Petrine Church. Hilgenfeld says: “There is scarcely any single writing which is of such importance for the history of the earliest stage of Christianity, and which has yielded such brilliant disclosures at the hands of the most careful critics, with regard to the earliest history of the Christian Church, as the writings ascribed to the Roman Clement, the Recognitions and the Homilies.”(302)

No conclusion has been reached in regard to the author of the Clementines. It is uncertain whether the Homilies and the Recognitions are from the same hand. Unfortunately, the Greek of the Recognitions is lost. We have only a Latin translation by Rufinus of Aquileia (d. 410), who took liberties with his text, as he informs Bishop Gaudentius, to whom he addressed his preface. He found that the copies of the book he had differed from one another in some particulars. Portions which he could not understand he omitted. There is reason to suspect that he altered such quotations as he found in it from the Gospel used by the author, and brought them, perhaps unconsciously, into closer conformity to the received text. In examining the Gospel employed by the author of the Clementines, we must therefore trust chiefly to those texts quoted in the Homilies.

Various opinions exist as to the date of the Clementines. They have been attributed to the first, second, third and fourth centuries. If we were to base our arguments on the work as it stands, the date to be assigned to it is the first half of the third century. A passage from the Recognitions is quoted by Origen in his Commentary on Genesis, written in A.D. 231; and mention is made in the work of the extension of the Roman franchise to all nations under the dominion of Rome, an event which took place in the reign of Caracalla (A.D. 211). The Recognitions also contain an extract from the work _De Fato_, ascribed to Bardesanes, but which was really written by one of his scholars. But it has been thought, not without great probability, that this passage did not originally belong to the Recognitions, but was thrust into the text about the middle of the third century.(303)

I have already pointed out the fact that the Church in the Clementines is never called “Christian;” that the word is never employed. It belonged to the community established by Paul, and with it the Church of Peter had no sympathy. To believe in the mission of Christ is, in the Clementine Homilies, to become a Jew. The convert from Gentiledom by passing into the Church passes under the Law, becomes, as we are told, a Jew. But the convert is made subject not to the Law as corrupted by the traditions of the elders, but to the original Law as re‐proclaimed by Christ.

The author of the Recognitions twice makes St. Peter say that the only difference existing between him and the Jews is in the manner in which they view Christ. To the apostles he is the Messiah come in humility, to come again in glory. But the Jews deny that the Messiah was to have two manifestations, and therefore reject Christ.(304)

Although we cannot rely on the exact words of the quotations from the Gospel in the “Recognitions,” there are references to the history of our Lord which give indications of narratives contained in the Gospel used by the pseudo‐Clement, therefore by the Ebionite Christians whose views he represents. We will go through all such passages in the order in which they occur in the “Recognitions.”

The first allusion to a text parallel to one in the Canonical Gospels is this: “Not only did they not believe, but they added blasphemy to unbelief, saying he was a gluttonous man and slave of his belly, and that he was influenced by a demon.”(305) The parallel passage is in St. Matthew xi. 18, 19. It is curious to notice that in the Recognitions the order is inverted. In St. Matthew, “they say, He hath a devil.... They say, Behold a man gluttonous, and a wine‐bibber;” and that the term “wine‐bibber” is changed into “slave of his belly.” Probably therefore in this instance the author of the Clementines borrowed from a different text from St. Matthew.

In the very next chapter the Recognitions approaches St. Matthew closer than the lost Gospel. For in the account of the crucifixion it is said that “the veil of the Temple was rent,” whereas the Gospel of the Hebrews stated that the lintel of the Temple had fallen. But here I suspect we have the hand of Rufinus the translator. We can understand how, finding in the text an inaccuracy of quotation, as he supposed, he altered it.

The next passage relates to the resurrection. “For some of them, watching the place with all care, when they could not prevent his rising again, _said that he was a magician_; others pretended that he was stolen away.”(306) The Canonical Gospels say nothing about this difference of opinion among the Jews, but St. Matthew states that it was commonly reported among them that his disciples had stolen his body away. Not a word about any suspicion that he had exercised witchcraft, a charge which we know from Celsus was brought against Christ later.

The next passage is especially curious. It relates to the unction of Christ. “He was the Son of God, and the beginning of all things; he became man; _him God anointed with oil that was taken from the wood of the Tree of Life_; and from this anointing he is called Christ.”(307) Then St. Peter goes on to argue: “In the present life, Aaron, the first high‐ priest, was anointed with a composition of chrism, which was made after the pattern of that spiritual ointment of which we have spoken before.... But if any one else was anointed with the same ointment, as deriving virtue from it, he became either king, or prophet, or priest. If, then, this temporal grace, compounded by men, had such efficacy, _consider __ how potent was that ointment extracted by God from a branch of the Tree of Life_, when that which was made by men could confer so excellent dignities among men.”

Here we have trace of an apparent myth relating to the unction of Jesus at his baptism. Was there any passage to this effect in the Hebrew Gospel translated by St. Jerome? It is hard to believe it. Had there been, we might have expected him to allude to it.

But that there was some unction of Christ mentioned in the early Gospels, I think is probable. If there were not, how did Jesus, so early, obtain the name of Christ, the Anointed One? That name was given to him before his divinity was wholly believed in, and when he was regarded only as the Messiah—nay, even before the apostles and disciples had begun to see in him anything higher than a teacher sent from God, a Rabbi founding a new school. It is more natural to suppose that the surname of the Anointed One was given to him because of some event in his life with which they were acquainted, than because they applied to him prophecies at a time when certainly they had no idea that such prophecies were spoken of him.

If some anointing did really accompany the baptism, then one can understand the importance attached to the baptism by the Elkesaites and other Gnostic sects; and how they had some ground for their doctrine that Jesus became the Christ only on his baptism. It is remarkable that, according to St. John’s Gospel, it is directly after the baptism that Andrew tells his brother Simon, “We have found the Messias, which is ... the Anointed.”(308) Twice in the Acts is Jesus spoken of as the Anointed: “Thy holy child Jesus, whom Thou hast anointed.”(309) The second occasion is remarkable, for it again apparently associates the anointing with the baptism. St. Peter “opened his mouth and said ... The word which God sent unto the children of Israel ... that word ye know, which was published throughout all Judaea, and began from Galilee after the baptism which John preached; how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power.”(310) I do not say that such an anointing did take place, but that it is probable it did. When Gnosticism fixed on this anointing as the communication to Christ of his divine mission and Messiahship, then mention of it was cut out of the Gospels in possession of the Church, and consequently the Canonical Gospels are without it to this day. But the Christian ceremonial of baptism, which was founded on what took place at the baptism of the Lord, maintained this unction as part of the sacrament, in the Eastern Church never to be dissociated from the actual baptism, but in the Western Church to be separated from it and elevated into a separate sacrament—Confirmation.

But if in the original Hebrew Gospel there was mention of the anointing of Jesus at or after his baptism, as I contend is probable, this mention did not include an account of the oil being expressed from the branch of the Tree of Life; that is a later addition, in full agreement with the fantastic ideas which were gradually permeating and colouring Judaic Christianity.

After the baptism, “_Jesus put out_, by the grace of baptism, _that fire which the priest kindled for sins_; for, from the time when he appeared, the chrism has ceased, by which the priesthood or the prophetic or the kingly office was conferred.”(311) The Homilies are more explicit: “He put out the fire on the altars.”(312) There was therefore in the Gospel used by the author of the Clementines an account of our Lord, after his anointing, entering into the Temple and extinguishing the altar fires.

In St. John’s Gospel, on which we may rely for the chronological sequence of events with more confidence than we can on the Synoptical Gospels, the casting of the money‐changers out of the Temple took place not long after the baptism. In St. Matthew’s account it took place at the close of the ministry, in the week of the Passion. That this exhibition of his authority marked the opening of his three years’ ministry rather than the close is most probable, and then it was, no doubt, that he extinguished the fires on the altar, according to the Gospel used by the author of the Clementines. Whether this incident occurred in the Gospel of the Hebrews it is not possible to say.

We are told that “James and John, the sons of Zebedee, had a command ... not to enter into their cities (_i.e._ the cities of the Samaritans), nor to bring the word of preaching to them.”(313) “And when our Master sent us forth to preach, he commanded us, But into whatsoever city or house we should enter, we should say, Peace be to this house. And if, said he, a son of peace be there, your peace shall come upon him; but if there be not, your peace shall return unto you. Also, that going from house to city, we should shake off upon them the very dust which adhered to our feet. But it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrha in the day of judgment than for that city or house.”(314) The Gospel of the Clementines, it is plain, contained an account of the sending forth of the apostles almost identical with that in St. Matthew, x.

“And ... Jesus himself declared that John was greater than all men and all the prophets.”(315) The corresponding passage is in St. Matthew.(316)

The Beatitudes, or some of them, were in it. “He said, _Blessed are the poor_; and promised earthly rewards; and promised that those who maintain righteousness shall be satisfied with meat and drink.”(317) “Our Master, inviting his disciples to patience, impressed on them the blessing of peace, which was to be preserved with the labour of patience.... He charges (the believers) to have peace among themselves, and says to them, _Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the very sons of God_.”(318) “The Father, whom only those can see who are pure in heart.”(319) Again strong similarity with slight difference. “He said, _I am not come to send peace on earth, but a sword; and henceforth you shall see father separated from son, son from father, husband from wife, and wife from husband, mother from daughter, and daughter from mother, brother from brother, father‐in‐law from daughter‐in‐law, friend from friend_.”(320) This is fuller than the corresponding passage in St. Matthew.(321)

“_It is enough for the disciple to be as his master._”(322) “He mourned over those who lived in riches and luxury, and bestowed nothing upon the poor; showing that they must render an account, because they did not pity their neighbours, even when they were in poverty, whom they ought to love as themselves.”(323) “In like manner he charged the Scribes and Pharisees during the last period of his teaching ... with hiding the key of knowledge which they had handed down to them from Moses, by which the gate of the heavenly kingdom might be opened.”(324) The key of knowledge occurs only in St. Luke’s Gospel. Had the author of the Clementines any knowledge of that Gospel? I do not think so, or we should find other quotations from St. Luke. St. Matthew says, “Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up (κλείετε) the kingdom of heaven.”(325) St. Luke says, “Ye have taken away the key (τὴν κλεῖδα) of knowledge.”(326) The author of the Clementines says, “Ye have hidden the key,” not “taken away.” I do not think, when the expression in St. Matthew suggests the “key,” that we need suppose that the author of the Recognitions quoted from St. Luke; rather, I presume, from his own Gospel, which in this passage resembled the words in St. Luke rather than those in St. Matthew, without, however, being exactly the same.(327)

“_Every kingdom divided against itself shall not stand._”(328) “_Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you._”(329) The writer knew, in the same terms as St. Matthew, our Lord’s sayings: “_Give not that which is holy to dogs, neither cast your pearls before swine._”(330) “_Whosoever shall look upon a woman to lust after her, hath committed adultery with her in his heart.... If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee; for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members perish, rather than thy whole body be cast into hell‐fire._”(331)

The woes denounced on the Scribes and Pharisees,(332) and the saying that the Queen of the South should “rise in judgment against this generation,”(333) are given in the Recognitions as in St. Matthew, as also that “the harvest is plenteous,”(334) “that no man can serve two masters,”(335) and the saying on the power of faith to move mountains.(336)

We have the parables of the goodly pearl,(337) of the marriage supper,(338) and of the tares,(339) but also that of the sower,(340) which does not occur in St. Matthew, but in St. Luke. This therefore was found in the Gospel used by the author of the Recognitions. There are two other apparent quotations from St. Luke: “_I have come to send fire on the earth, and how I wish that it were kindled_”;(341) and the story of the rich fool.(342) The first, however, is differently expressed from St. Luke. There are just two more equally questionable quotations: “_Be ye merciful, as also your heavenly Father is merciful, who makes his sun to rise upon the good and the evil, and rains upon the just and the unjust._”(343) We have the Greek in one of the Homilies.(344) In St. Luke it runs, “Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful.”(345) In St. Matthew, “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use you, and persecute you; that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.”(346) Is it not clear that either the pseudo‐Clement condensed the direction, “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use you, and persecute you,” into the brief maxim, “Be ye good and merciful,”—or that, and this is more probable, there were concurrent traditional accounts of our Lord’s saying, and that St. Matthew, St. Luke, and the writer of the Gospel used by the pseudo‐ Clement, made use of independent texts in their compilations?

The next passage is a saying of our Lord on the cross, which is given in the Recognitions: “_Father, forgive them their sin, for they know not what they do._”(347) In the Homilies we have the original Greek: “Father, forgive them their sins, for they know not what they do.”(348) Rufinus has unconsciously altered the text in translating it by making “sins” singular instead of plural.

It is not necessary to note the insignificant difference of the word ἅ in the Homily and the word τί in the Gospel. But who cannot see that the addition of the words, “their sins,” completely changes the thought of the Saviour? Jesus prays God to forgive the Jews the crime they commit in crucifying him, and not to pardon all the sins of their lives that they have committed. The addition of these two words not merely modify the thought; they represent another of an inferior order. They would not have been introduced into the text if the author of the Gospel used by the pseudo‐Clement had had the Gospel of St. Luke before him. These words were certainly not derived from St. Luke; they are due to a separate recollection or tradition of the sayings of the Saviour on the cross. Those sayings we may well believe were cherished in the memory of the early disciples. Tradition always modifies, weakens, renders commonplace the noblest thoughts and most striking sayings, and colours the most original with a tint of triviality.(349)

We find in both the Recollections and Homilies a passage which has been thought to be a quotation from St. John: “_Verily I say unto you, That unless a man is born again of water, he shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven._”(350) Here, again, the hand of Rufinus is to be traced. The same quotation is made in the Homilies, and it stands there thus: “_Verily I say unto you, Unless ye be born again of the water of life_ (or _the living water_) _in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, ye cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven._”(351)

That the narrative of the interview with Nicodemus was in the Gospel of the Hebrews, we learned from Justin Martyr quoting it. We will place the parallel passages opposite each other:

GOSPEL OF THE HEBREWS. GOSPEL OF ST. JOHN. JUSTIN MARTYR, 1 Apol. 61. c. iii. 3, 5. “_Christ said, Except ye be “3. Jesus answered and said born again, ye cannot enter unto him, Verily, verily, I into the kingdom of heaven._” say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” PSEUDO‐CLEMENT, Hom. xi. 26. “_And Christ said (with an “5. Jesus answered, Verily, oath),_(_352_)_ Verily I say verily, I say unto thee, unto you, Unless ye are born Except a man be born of water again of the water of life (in and spirit, he cannot enter the name of the Father, and of into the kingdom of God.” the Son, and of the Holy Ghost), ye cannot enter into the kingdom of Heaven._”

The fragment in the Homilies clearly belongs to the same narrative as the fragment in Justin’s Apology. Both are addressed in the second person plural, “Except ye be born again;” in the Gospel of St. John the first is, “Except a man be born again;” the second, “Except a man be born of water and spirit;” both in the third person singular. The form of the first answer in Justin differs from that in St. John: “he cannot enter the kingdom,” “he cannot see the kingdom.”

That these are independent accounts I can hardly doubt. The words, “in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost,” are an obvious interpolation, perhaps a late one, in the text of the Homilies; for Rufinus would hardly have omitted to translate this, though he did allow himself to make short verbal alterations.

There is another apparent quotation from St. John in the fifth book of the Recognitions: “_Every one is made the servant of him to whom he yields subjection._”(353) But here again the quotation is very questionable. St. John’s version of our Lord’s saying is, “Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin.” St. Paul is much nearer: “Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?”(354)

The quotation in the Recognitions is not from St. Paul, for the author expressly declares it is a saying of our Lord. St. Paul could not have had St. John’s Gospel under his eye when he wrote, for that Gospel was not composed till long after he wrote the Epistle to the Romans. He gives no hint that he is quoting a saying of our Lord traditionally known to the Roman Christians. He apparently makes appeal to their experience when he says, “Know ye not.” Yet this fragment of an ancient lost Gospel in the Clementine Recognitions gives another colour to his words; they may be paraphrased, “Know ye not that saying of Christ, To whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are?” It appears, therefore, that this is an earlier recorded reminiscence of our Lord’s saying than that of St. John.

There is one, and only one, apparent quotation from St. Paul in the Recognitions: “In God’s estimation, he is not a Jew who is a Jew among men, nor is he a Gentile that is called a Gentile, but he who, believing in God, fulfils his law and does his will, though he be not circumcised.”(355) St. Paul’s words are: “He is not a Jew which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh; but he is a Jew which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter.”

There is no doubt a resemblance between these passages. But it is probable that the resemblance is due solely to community of thought in the minds of both writers. It would be extraordinary if this were a quotation, for the author of the Recognitions nowhere quotes from any Epistle, not even from those of St. Peter; and that he, an Ebionite, should quote St. Paul, whose Epistles the Ebionites rejected, is scarcely credible.

The Recognitions mention the temptation: “The prince of wickedness ... presumed that he should be worshipped by him by whom he knew that he was to be destroyed. Therefore our Lord, confirming the worship of one God, answered him, It is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve. And he, terrified by this answer, and fearing lest the true religion of the one and true God should be restored, hastened straightway to send forth into this world false prophets and false apostles and false teachers, who should speak, indeed, in the name of Christ, but should accomplish the will of the demon.”(356) Here we have Christ indicated as the one who was to restore that true worship of God which Moses had instituted, but which the Ebionites, with their Essene ancestors, asserted had been defaced and corrupted by false traditions. And in opposition to this, the devil sends out false apostles, false teachers, to undo this work, calling themselves, however, apostles of Christ. There can be little doubt who is meant. The reference is to St. Paul, Silas, and those who accepted his views, in opposition to those of St. James and St. Peter.

In Homily xii. is a citation which seems to indicate the use of the third Canonical Gospel. At first sight it appears to be a combination of a passage of St. Matthew and a parallel passage of St. Luke. It is preceded in the Homily by a phrase not found in the Canonical Gospels, but which is given, together with what follows, as a declaration of the Saviour. The three passages are placed side by side for comparison:

HOMILY xii. 19. MATT. xviii. 7. LUKE xvii. 1. “_It must be that “It must needs be “It is impossible good things come, that offences come; but that offences and happy is he by but woe to that man will come; but woe whom they come. In by whom the offence to him through whom like manner it must cometh.” they come.” be that evil things come, but woe to him by whom they come._”(357)

The passage in the Homily is more complete than those in St. Matthew and St. Luke. The two Canonical Evangelists made use of imperfect fragments destitute of one member of the sentence. One cannot but wish to believe that our Lord pronounced a benediction on those who did good in their generation.

“There is amongst us,” says St. Peter in his second Homily, “one Justa, a Syro‐Phoenician, a Canaanite by race, whose daughter was oppressed with a grievous disease. And she came to our Lord, crying out and entreating that he would heal her daughter. But he, being asked by us also, said, ‘_It is not lawful to heal the Gentiles, who are like unto dogs on account of their using various meats and practices, while the table in the kingdom has been given to the sons of Israel._’ But she, hearing this, and begging to partake as a dog of the crumbs that fall from this table, having changed what she was (_i.e._ having given up the use of forbidden food), by living like the sons of the kingdom, obtained healing for her daughter as she asked. For she being a Gentile, and remaining in the same course of life, he would not have healed her had she persisted to live as do the Gentiles, on account of its not being lawful to heal a Gentile.”(358)

That the Ebionites perverted the words of our Lord to make them support their tenets on distinction of meats is obvious.

In the Clementine Homilies we have thrice repeated a saying of our Lord which we know of from St. Jerome and St. Clement of Alexandria, who speak of it as undoubtedly a genuine saying of Christ, “_Be ye good money‐ changers_.”(359)

This text is used by the author of the Clementines to prove the necessity of distinguishing between the gold and the dross in Holy Scripture. And to this he adds the quotation, “_Ye do therefore err, not knowing the true things of the Scriptures; and for this reason ye are ignorant also of the power of God_.”(360)

The following are some more fragments from the Clementine Homilies:

“_He said, I am he of whom Moses prophesied, saying, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise unto you of your brethren, like unto me: him hear ye in all things; and whosoever will not hear the prophet shall die._”(361) This saying of Moses is quoted by both St. Peter and St. Stephen in their addresses, as recorded in the Acts. It is probable, therefore, that our Lord had claimed this prophecy to have been spoken of him. But St. Luke had never heard that he had done so, as he makes no allusion to it in his Gospel or in the speeches he puts in the mouths of Peter and Stephen in the Acts.

“_It is thine, O man, said he, to prove my words, as silver and money are proved by the exchangers._”(362)

“_Give none occasion to the evil one._”(363)

Twice repeated we have the text, “_Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve_.”(364)

In St. Matthew’s Gospel (iv. 10) it runs, “Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.”

In the Clementines: “He alleged that it was right to present to him who strikes you on one cheek the other also, and to give to him who takes away your cloak your _hood_ also, and to go two miles with him who compels you to go one.”(365) This differs from the account in St. Matthew, by using for the word χιτῶνα, “tunic,” of the Canonical Gospel, the word μαφόριον, “hood.”

There are other passages identical with, or almost identical with, the received text in St. Matthew’s Gospel, which it is not necessary to enter upon separately.

They are: Matt. v. 3, 8, 17, 18, 34, 35, 37, 39, 40, 41, vi. 8, 13, vii. 7, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 21, viii. 11, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, ix. 13, x. 28, 34, xi. 25, 27, 28, xii. 7, 26, 34, 42, xiii. 17, 39, xv. 13, xvi. 13, 18, xix. 8, 17, xxii. 2, 32, xxiii. 25, xxiv. 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, xxv. 41. In all, some fifty‐five verses, almost and often quite the same as in St. Matthew’s Gospel.

There is just one text supposed to be taken from St. Mark’s Gospel, four from St. Luke’s, and two from St. John’s. But I do not think we are justified in concluding that these quotations are taken from the three last‐named Canonical Gospels. That they are not taken from St. Luke we may be almost certain, for that Gospel was not received by the Judaizing Christians. When we examine the passages, the probability of their being quotations from the Canonical Gospels disappears.

We find, “He, the true Prophet, said, _I am the gate of life; he that entereth through me entereth into life_.”(366) The words in St. John’s Gospel are, “I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved.”(367) The idea is the same, but the mode of expression is different.

“Again he said, _My sheep hear my voice_.”(368)

The quotation from St. Mark is too brief for us to be able to form any well‐founded opinion upon it. It is this: “But to those who were misled to imagine many gods, as the Scriptures say, he said, _Hear, O Israel; the Lord your God is one Lord_.”(369)

No prejudice would exist among the Ebionites against the Gospel of St. Mark, but the Christology of the Johannine Gospel, its doctrine of the Logos, would not accord with their low views of Christ. The Ebionites who denied the Godhead of Jesus could hardly acknowledge as canonical a Gospel which contained the words, “And the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

HOM. xix. 22. JOHN ix. 1‐3. “Our Master replied to those “And as Jesus passed by, he who asked him concerning him saw a man which was blind from that was born blind, and to his birth. And his disciples whom he restored sight, if it asked him, saying, Master, who was he or his parents who had did sin, this man, or his sinned, in that he was born parents, that he was born blind. _It is not that he hath blind? Jesus answered, Neither sinned in anywise, nor his hath this man sinned, nor his parents; but in order that the parents: but that the works of power of God may be God should be made manifest in manifested, who healeth sins him.” of ignorance._”(370)

The resemblance is striking. Nevertheless I do not think we have a right to conclude that this passage in the Clementine Homilies is necessarily a citation from St. John.

The text is quoted in connection with the peculiar Ebionite doctrine of seasons and days already alluded to. When our Lord says that he heals the sins of ignorance, he is made in the Clementine Gospel to assert that the blindness of the man was the result of disregard by his parents of the new moons and sabbaths, not wilfully, but through ignorance. “The afflictions you mentioned,” says St. Peter in connection with this quotation, “are the result of ignorance, but assuredly not of wickedness. Give me the man who sins not, and I will show you the man who suffers not.”

But though this is the interpretation put on the words of our Lord by the Clementine Ebionite, it by no means flows naturally from them; it is rather wrung out of them.

The words, I think, mean that the blindness of the man is symbolical; its mystical meaning is ignorance. Our Lord by opening the eyes of the blind exhibits himself as the spiritual enlightener of mankind. He is come to unclose men’s eyes to the true light that he sheds abroad in the world.

In St. John’s Gospel, after having declared that blindness was not the punishment of sin in the man or his parents, our Lord continues, “I must work the works of Him that sent me, while it is day; the night cometh, when no man can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”