It must be borne in mind that all the quotations which we have hitherto examined are those which have been selected as most closely approximating to passages in our Gospels. Space forbids our giving illustrations of the vast number which so much more widely differ from parallel texts in the Synoptics. We shall confine
ourselves to pointing out in the briefest possible manner some of the passages which are persistent in their variations or recall similar passages in the Memoirs of Justin. The first of these is the injunction in Hom. iii. 55: "Let your yea be yea, your nay nay, for whatsoever is more than these cometh of the evil one." The same saying is repeated in Hom. xix. with the sole addition of "and." We subjoin the Greek of these, together with that of the Gospel and Justin with which the Homilies agree.
As we have already discussed this passage(1) we need not repeat our remarks here. That this passage comes from a source different from our Gospels is rendered still more probable by the quotation in Hom. xix. 2 being preceded by another which has no parallel at all in our Gospels. "And elsewhere he said, 'He who sowed the bad seed is the devil' [------](2): and again: 'Give no pretext to the evil one.'(2) [------]. But in exhorting he prescribes: 'Let your yea be yea.'" &c. The first of these phrases differs markedly from our Gospels; the second is not in them at all; the third, which we are considering, differs likewise in an important degree in common with Justin's quotation, and there is every reason for supposing that the whole were derived from the same unknown source.(3) In the same Homily, xix. 2, there occurs also the passage which exhibits variations likewise found in Justin, which we have already examined,(4) and now
merely point out: "Begone into the darkness without, which the Father hath prepared for the devil and his angels."(1) The quotation in Justin (Dial. 76) agrees exactly with this, with the exception that Justin has [------] instead of [------], which is not important, whilst the agreement in the marked variation from the parallel in the first Gospel establishes the probability of a common source different from ours.(2)
We have also already(3) referred to the passage in Hom. xvii. 4. "No one knew [------] the Father but the Son, even as no one knoweth the Son but the Father and those to whom the Son is minded to reveal him." This quotation differs from Matt. xi. 27 in form, in language, and in meaning, but agrees with Justin's reading of the same text, and as we have shown the use of the aorist here, and the transposition of the order, were characteristics of Gospels used by Gnostics and other parties in the early Church, and the passage with these variations was regarded by them as the basis of some of their leading doctrines.(4) That the variation is not accidental, but a deliberate quotation from a written source, is proved by this, and by the circumstance that the author of the Homilies repeatedly quotes it elsewhere in the same form.(5) It is unreasonable to suppose that the quotations in these Homilies are so systematically and consistently erroneous, and not only can they not, from their actual variations, be legitimately referred to the Synoptics exclusively, but, considering all the circumstances, the