“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)