CHAPTER V.QUOTATIONS AND CITATIONS.

Theapparentor seeming use of our Gospels by Justin and his contemporaries is a fact of great weight in determining whether they are the “Memoirs” referred to by him.

According to the Indexes of Texts by the learned editors of the Ante-Nicene Christian Library, John’s Gospel is quoted or cited, twice in Barnabas, once in Diognetus, twice in Hermas, once by Justin, and once by Papias. Mark is quoted or cited, once in Barnabas, twice by Clement, three times by Justin, and once by Polycarp: Acts is quoted or cited once in Barnabas, once by Clement, once by Justin, and four times by Polycarp: Luke is quoted or cited three times in Barnabas, three times by Clement, once in Hermas, fourteen times by Justin, and twice by Polycarp: and Matthew is quoted or cited six times in Barnabas, five times by Clement, twice in Diognetus, nine times in Hermas, forty-seven times by Justin, and seven times by Polycarp.

As tocitations, passages deemed such by one, may have been overlooked or regarded differently by another, so that there is not an entire agreement as to the number of citations,i. e.of allusions or references that are not quotations. And it should be understood that in thequotations, the books from which they are taken are not stated, except that Justin indicates thathis, in general, are from the “Memoirs.” Their agreement with our Gospels is sometimes literally exact, quite often it is otherwise; and not unfrequently two or three passages are seemingly blended, as if the author were quoting from memory and giving the sense, merely.

It will be sufficient for the purposes of the argument to give examples (except as to the Fourth Gospel) only from Justin,and to omithisquotations from Matthew and Mark, since they are so numerous and not a few of them of considerable length. Of his references, Rev. Mr. Wright says[1]: “Upon examination it is found that of the one hundred and twenty or more allusions which Justin makes to the Gospel history, nearly all coincide as to substance with the statements of either Matthew or Luke. Of the sixty or seventy apparently direct quotations, ten are exact, twenty-five are only slightly variant, while there are thirty-two in which the variation is considerable. But in respect to variations from the original in quotation, it should be remembered that familiarity often leads to carelessness with regard to minute points. Justin, himself, out of one hundred and sixty-two quotations from the Old Testament, has only sixty-four exact, while forty-four are slightly variant, and fifty-four decidedly so.”

If the reader, with the New Testament in hand, will make a comparison in the examples which will be given, he can form his own judgment, which it is conceived, will be no doubtful one. The substantial agreement is very striking even when the language is not identical.

JUSTIN FROM ACTS.“He was taken up into heaven while they beheld.” (Res., c. 9.) Acts i. 9.

JUSTIN FROM ACTS.

“He was taken up into heaven while they beheld.” (Res., c. 9.) Acts i. 9.

FROM MARK.“But is it not absurd to say that these members will exist after the resurrection from the dead, since the Saviour said, ‘They neither marry nor are given in marriage, but shall be as the angels in heaven.’” (Res., c. 2.) Mark xi. 25.“And that we ought to worship God alone, he thus persuadeth us: ‘The greatest commandment is, “Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve with all thy heart, and with all thy strength the Lord God that made thee.”’” (Ap. c. 16.) Mark xii. 30.“He says, ‘I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.’” (Res., c. 8.) Mark ii. 17.

FROM MARK.

“But is it not absurd to say that these members will exist after the resurrection from the dead, since the Saviour said, ‘They neither marry nor are given in marriage, but shall be as the angels in heaven.’” (Res., c. 2.) Mark xi. 25.

“And that we ought to worship God alone, he thus persuadeth us: ‘The greatest commandment is, “Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve with all thy heart, and with all thy strength the Lord God that made thee.”’” (Ap. c. 16.) Mark xii. 30.

“He says, ‘I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.’” (Res., c. 8.) Mark ii. 17.

FROM LUKE.The first three are parts of long quotations from the Sermon on the Mount, principally as in Matthew (Ap. cc. 15, 16) Luke vi.: 28, 29, and Matthew vi.: 7, 8, 13.4. “We are persuaded that every man ... will render account according to the power he has received from God, as Christ intimated when he said, ‘To whom God has given more, of him shall more be required.’” (Ap. c. 17.) Luke xv. 48.5. “And the angel of God who was sent to the same virgin at that time brought her good news, saying, ‘Behold, thou shalt conceive of the Holy Ghost, and shall bear a son, and he shall be called the Son of the Highest. And thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins,’as they who have recorded[2]all that concerns our Saviour Jesus Christ have taught, whom we believe since by Isaiah also, whom we have now adduced, the Spirit of prophecy declared that he should be born as we intimated before.” (Ap. c. 33.) Luke i. 32, and Matthew i. 21.6. “As our Lord himself says, ‘He that heareth me, heareth him that sent me.’” (Ap. c. 63.) Luke x. 16.7. “And again in other words he said, ‘I give unto you power to tread on serpents, and on scorpions and on scolopendras, and on all the might of the enemy.’” (Dial. c. 76.) Luke x. 19.8. “For he exclaimed before his crucifixion: ‘The Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the scribes and pharisees and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.’” (Dial. c. 76.) Luke ix. 22.9. “Just as our Lord also said: ‘They shall neither marry nor be given in marriage, but shall be equal to the angels, the children of the God of the resurrection.’” (Dial. c. 81.) Luke xx. 35, 36.10. “For he taught us to pray for our enemies also, saying, ‘Love your enemies; be kind and merciful as your heavenly Father’ is, for we see that the Almighty God is kind and merciful, causing his sun to rise on the unthankful and on the righteous, and sending rain on the holy and on the wicked.” (Dial. c. 96.) Luke vi. 35, and Matthew v. 45.11. “But the Virgin Mary received faith and joy, when the angel Gabriel announced the good tidings to her that the Spirit ofthe Lord would come upon her and the power of the Highest would overshadow her; wherefore also the Holy Thing begotten of her is the Son of God; and she replied, ‘Be it unto me according to thy word.’” (Dial. c. 100.) Luke i. 35, 38.12. “For when Christ was giving up his spirit on the cross he said: ‘Father, unto thy hands I commend my spirit,’as I have learned also from the Memoirs.” (Dial. c. 105.) Luke xxiii. 46.13. “He says, ‘The children of this world marry and are given in marriage; but the children of the world to come neither marry nor are given in marriage, but shall be like the angels in heaven.’” (Res., c. 3.) Luke xx. 34, 35.14. “And wishing to confirm this, when his disciples did not know whether to believe he had truly risen in the body, and were looking upon him and doubting, he said to them, ‘Ye have not yet faith, see that it is I,’ and he let them handle him, and showed them the prints of the nails in his hands. And when they were by every kind of proof persuaded that it was himself and in the body, they asked him to eat with them, that they might thus still more accurately ascertain that he had in verity risen bodily; and he did eat honeycomb and fish. And when he had thus shown them that there is truly a resurrection of the flesh, and wishing to show them this also, that it is not impossible for flesh to ascend into heaven (as he had said that our dwelling place is in heaven). ‘He was taken up into heaven while they beheld,’ as he was in the flesh.” (Res., c. 9.) Luke xxiv. 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, and Acts i. 9.

FROM LUKE.

The first three are parts of long quotations from the Sermon on the Mount, principally as in Matthew (Ap. cc. 15, 16) Luke vi.: 28, 29, and Matthew vi.: 7, 8, 13.

4. “We are persuaded that every man ... will render account according to the power he has received from God, as Christ intimated when he said, ‘To whom God has given more, of him shall more be required.’” (Ap. c. 17.) Luke xv. 48.

5. “And the angel of God who was sent to the same virgin at that time brought her good news, saying, ‘Behold, thou shalt conceive of the Holy Ghost, and shall bear a son, and he shall be called the Son of the Highest. And thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins,’as they who have recorded[2]all that concerns our Saviour Jesus Christ have taught, whom we believe since by Isaiah also, whom we have now adduced, the Spirit of prophecy declared that he should be born as we intimated before.” (Ap. c. 33.) Luke i. 32, and Matthew i. 21.

6. “As our Lord himself says, ‘He that heareth me, heareth him that sent me.’” (Ap. c. 63.) Luke x. 16.

7. “And again in other words he said, ‘I give unto you power to tread on serpents, and on scorpions and on scolopendras, and on all the might of the enemy.’” (Dial. c. 76.) Luke x. 19.

8. “For he exclaimed before his crucifixion: ‘The Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the scribes and pharisees and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.’” (Dial. c. 76.) Luke ix. 22.

9. “Just as our Lord also said: ‘They shall neither marry nor be given in marriage, but shall be equal to the angels, the children of the God of the resurrection.’” (Dial. c. 81.) Luke xx. 35, 36.

10. “For he taught us to pray for our enemies also, saying, ‘Love your enemies; be kind and merciful as your heavenly Father’ is, for we see that the Almighty God is kind and merciful, causing his sun to rise on the unthankful and on the righteous, and sending rain on the holy and on the wicked.” (Dial. c. 96.) Luke vi. 35, and Matthew v. 45.

11. “But the Virgin Mary received faith and joy, when the angel Gabriel announced the good tidings to her that the Spirit ofthe Lord would come upon her and the power of the Highest would overshadow her; wherefore also the Holy Thing begotten of her is the Son of God; and she replied, ‘Be it unto me according to thy word.’” (Dial. c. 100.) Luke i. 35, 38.

12. “For when Christ was giving up his spirit on the cross he said: ‘Father, unto thy hands I commend my spirit,’as I have learned also from the Memoirs.” (Dial. c. 105.) Luke xxiii. 46.

13. “He says, ‘The children of this world marry and are given in marriage; but the children of the world to come neither marry nor are given in marriage, but shall be like the angels in heaven.’” (Res., c. 3.) Luke xx. 34, 35.

14. “And wishing to confirm this, when his disciples did not know whether to believe he had truly risen in the body, and were looking upon him and doubting, he said to them, ‘Ye have not yet faith, see that it is I,’ and he let them handle him, and showed them the prints of the nails in his hands. And when they were by every kind of proof persuaded that it was himself and in the body, they asked him to eat with them, that they might thus still more accurately ascertain that he had in verity risen bodily; and he did eat honeycomb and fish. And when he had thus shown them that there is truly a resurrection of the flesh, and wishing to show them this also, that it is not impossible for flesh to ascend into heaven (as he had said that our dwelling place is in heaven). ‘He was taken up into heaven while they beheld,’ as he was in the flesh.” (Res., c. 9.) Luke xxiv. 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, and Acts i. 9.

Before presenting Justin, from the Fourth Gospel, the use of this Gospel by his contemporaries will be considered.

InBarnabas(c. 6) it is said that “He was to be manifested in flesh and to sojourn among us.” (Com. John i. 14.) It is also said in c. 12, in effect, that the brazen serpent was a type of Jesus. (Com. John iii. 14-18.) Another passage in c. 7, although not cited by the editors, is, “Because they shall see him then in that day having a scarlet robe about his body down to his feet; and they shall say, ‘is not this he whom we once despised andpiercedand mocked and crucified?’” Thismayhave had reference to what is recorded only in John, asApollinaris,[3]bishop of Hierapolis (cir.A.D. 170), afterward wrote: “The Son of God,piercedin the sacred side, who shed forth from his side the two things again cleansing, water and blood, word and spirit.”

InDiognetus, c. 6, it is said that “Christians dwell in the world yet are not of the world.” (Com. John xvii. 11, 14, 16.) In c. 11 it is said, “This is he who was from the beginning” (Com. John i. 1); and in the same chapter, “For who that is rightly taught and begotten by the loving Word, would not seek to know accurately the things which have been clearly shown by the Word to his disciples, to whom the Word being manifested has revealed them.” (Com. John i. 14, 18.) There is but a singlequotationin this eloquent Letter, which is as in First Corinthians viii. 1, “Knowledge puffeth up, but love edifieth.”

John alone speaks of Christ as thedoor, but the figure is often used inHermas, as, “You saw, he added, the multitude who were building the tower? I saw them, sir, I said. Those, he said, are all glorious angels, and by them accordingly is the Lord surrounded. And the gate is the Son of God. This is the one entrance to the Lord. In no other way, then, shall any one enter into him except through his Son.” (Simil. ix. 12.) John x. This book of Hermas is an allegory in which an angel, in the guise of a shepherd, gives instruction in the doctrines and duties that were held and required by the Church. It has not a singlequotationfrom either the Old or New Testament. But as Dr. Chartris in “Canonicity” (p. 137) well says: “The dignity, mission, and sufferings of God’s Son are prominent in Hermas’ teaching, and remind us of the Fourth Gospel at every turn.”

The supposed quotation by Papias, Fragment 5 (found in Irenæus), “In my Father’s house are many mansions,” has been given in a previous chapter.[A]

Basilides, according to Hippolytus, used as proof-texts the exact passages found in John i. 9 and John ii. 4. Hippolytusfirst records the comments of Basilides on the sentence in Genesis,Let there be light, and then proceeds as follows: “And this, he says, is what is said in the Gospels, ‘The true light which lighteth every man which cometh into the world.’ And that each thing, he says, has its own seasons, the Saviour is a sufficient witness when he says, ‘My hour is not yet come.’” Those who deny that these quotations[4]were by Basilides, claim that Hippolytus sometimes mixes up the opinions of the master of a school with those of his followers, and so it is not certain that Basilides used these texts. The learned author of “Canonicity,” recently published, p. 173, declares that the difficulties in the way of ascribing those quotations to any other than Basilides, are “enormous.” The reasoning of Matthew Arnold (who is quite far from being rigidly orthodox) is so conclusive that we give the substance of it: “If we take all the doubtful cases of the kind and compare them with our present case, we shall find that it is not one of them. It is not true that here where the name of Basilides has just come before, and where no mention of his son or of his disciples has intervened since, there is any such ambiguity as is found in other cases.... The author in general uses the formula,according to them, when he quotes from the school, and the formula,he says, when he gives the dicta of the Master. And in this particular case he manifestly quotes the dicta of Basilides, and no one who had not a theory to serve would ever dream of doubting it. Basilides, therefore, about the year one hundred and twenty-five of our own era, had before him the Fourth Gospel.”

The Epistles of Ignatius, whether the longer or shorter or Syriac, may be of too doubtful genuineness, or rather, the extent as to which they are genuine is too doubtful to be relied upon, although some of them contain numerous quotations.

[1]The Logic of Christian Evidences. By G. Frederick Wright, Andover, A.D. 1880, p. 190.[2]Or, as Dr. Abbott translated it, as “those who have written Memoirs of all things concerning our Saviour Jesus Christ, whom we believe,” etc. Fourth Gospel, p. 21.[3]As quoted (p. 43) in The Supernatural Origin of Christianity. By George P. Fisher, Professor of Church History in Yale College (A.D. 1870).[A]Chap. 3.[4]Judge Waite does not even refer to these quotations except to quote from Dr. Davidson in respect to Basilides in general, that “His supposed quotations from the New Testament in Hippolytus are too precarious to be trusted.” He does not seem to have known anything of Professors Arnold and Fisher, or Dr. Abbot, not to mention other veryrespectablewriters within the last ten years, who have regarded the use of the Fourth Gospel by Basilides as sufficiently attested.

[1]The Logic of Christian Evidences. By G. Frederick Wright, Andover, A.D. 1880, p. 190.

[2]Or, as Dr. Abbott translated it, as “those who have written Memoirs of all things concerning our Saviour Jesus Christ, whom we believe,” etc. Fourth Gospel, p. 21.

[3]As quoted (p. 43) in The Supernatural Origin of Christianity. By George P. Fisher, Professor of Church History in Yale College (A.D. 1870).

[A]Chap. 3.

[4]Judge Waite does not even refer to these quotations except to quote from Dr. Davidson in respect to Basilides in general, that “His supposed quotations from the New Testament in Hippolytus are too precarious to be trusted.” He does not seem to have known anything of Professors Arnold and Fisher, or Dr. Abbot, not to mention other veryrespectablewriters within the last ten years, who have regarded the use of the Fourth Gospel by Basilides as sufficiently attested.

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