The author rightly notices--though he does not seem quite to appreciate its bearing--the fact that Marcion and some codices (of the Old Latin translation) insert, as Clement does, the phrase [Greek: ei ouk egennaethae ae] in the text of St. Luke. Supposing that this were the text of St. Luke's Gospel which Clement had before him, it would surely be so much easier to regard his quotation as directly taken from the Gospel; but the truer view perhaps would be that we have here an instance (and the number of such instances in the older MSS. is legion) of the tendency to interpolate by the insertion of parallel passages from the same or from the other Synoptic Gospels. Clement and Marcion (with the Old Latin) will then confirm each other, as showing that even at this early date the two passages, Matt. xxvi. 24 and Matt. xviii. 6 (Luke xvii. 2), had already begun to be combined.
There is one point more to be noticed before we leave the Epistle of Clement. There is a quotation from Isaiah in this Epistle which is common to it with the first two Synoptics. Of this Volkmar writes as follows, giving the words of Clement, c. xv, 'The Scripture says somewhere, This people honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me,' ([Greek: houtos ho laos tois cheilesin me tima hae de kardia auton porro apestin ap' emou]). 'This "Scripture" the writer found in Mark vii. 6 (followed in Matt. xv. 8), and in that shape he could not at once remember where it stood in the Old Testament. It is indeed Mark's peculiar reproduction of Is. xxix. 13, in opposition to the original and the LXX. A further proof that the Roman Christian has here our Synoptic text in his mind, may be taken from c. xiii, where he quotes Jer. ix. 24 with equal divergence from the LXX, after the precedent of the Apostle (1 Cor. i. 31, 2 Cor. x. 17) whose letters he expressly refers to (c. xlvii) [Endnote 69:1]. It is difficult here to avoid the conclusion that Clement is quoting the Old Testament through the medium of our Gospels. The text of the LXX is this, [Greek: engizei moi ho laos houtos en to stomati autou kai en tois cheilesin auton timosin me]. Clement has the passage exactly as it is given in Mark ([Greek: ho laos houtos] Matt.), except that he writes [Greek: apestin] where both of the Gospels have [Greek: apechei] with the LXX. The passage is not Messianic, so that the variation cannot be referred to a Targum; and though A. and six other MSS. in Holmes and Parsons omit [Greek: en to stomati autou] (through wrong punctuation-- Credner), still there is no MS. authority whatever, and naturally could not be, for the omission of [Greek: engizei moi ... kai] and for the change of [Greek: timosin] to [Greek: tima]. There can be little doubt that this was a free quotation in the original of the Synoptic Gospels, and it is in a high degree probable that it has passed through them into Clement of Rome. It might perhaps be suggested that Clement was possibly quoting the earlier document, the original of our Synoptics, but this suggestion seems to be excluded both by his further deviation from the LXX in [Greek: apestin], and also by the phenomena of the last quotation we have been discussing, which are certainly of a secondary character. Altogether I cannot but regard this passage as the strongest evidence we possess for the use of the Synoptic Gospels by Clement; it seems to carry the presumption that he did use them up to a considerable degree of probability.