the Recognitions, whether that work be of older or more recent date, the passage does not occur at all. Now, although it is impossible to say how and where this erroneous reference to a passage of the Old Testament first occurred, there is no reason for affirming that it originated in our first Synoptic, and as little for asserting that its occurrence in the Clementine Homilies, with so different a context and object, involves the conclusion that their author derived it from the Gospel, and not from the Old Testament or some other source. On the contrary, the peculiar argument based upon it in the Homilies suggests a different origin, and it is very probable that the passage, with its erroneous reference, was derived by both from another and common source.
Another passage is a phrase from the "Lord's Prayer," which occurs in Hom. xix. 2: "But also in the prayer which he commended to us, we have it said: Deliver us from the evil one" [------]. It need scarcely be said, however, that few Gospels can have been composed without including this prayer, and the occurrence of this short phrase demonstrates nothing more than the mere fact, that the author of the Homilies was acquainted with one of the most universally known lessons of Jesus, or made use of a Gospel which contained it. There would have been cause for wonder had he been ignorant of it.
The only other passage which agrees literally with our Gospels is also a mere fragment from the parable of the Talents, and when the other references to the same parable are added, it is evident that the quotation is not from our Gospels. In Hom. iii. 65, the address to the good servant is introduced: "Well done, good and faithful servant" [------], which agrees
with the words in Matt. xxv. 21. The allusion to the parable of the talents in the context is perfectly clear, and the passage occurs in an address of the Apostle Peter to overcome the modest scruples of Zaccheus, the former publican, who has been selected by Peter as his successor in the Church of Caesarea when he is about to leave in pursuit of Simon the Magician. Anticipating the possibility of his hesitating to accept the office, Peter, in an earlier part of his address, however, makes fuller allusions to the same parable of the talents, which we must contrast with the parallel in the first Synoptic. "But if any of those present, having the ability to instruct the ignorance of men, shrink back from it, considering only his own ease, then let him expect to hear:"