and what little exists does not warrant an early date. Origen, it is true, mentions [———],(1) which, it is conjectured, may either be the same work as the [———], or Recognitions, translated by Rufinus, or related to it, and Epiphanius and others refer to [———];(2) but our Clementine Homilies are not mentioned by any writer before pseudo-Athanasius.(3) The work, therefore, can at the best afford no substantial testimony to the antiquity and apostolic origin of our Gospels. Hilgenfeld, following in the steps of Baur, arrives at the conclusion that the Homilies are directed against the Gnosticism of Marcion (and also, as we shall hereafter see, against the Apostle Paul), and he, therefore, necessarily assigns to them a date subsequent to a.d. 160. As Reuss, however, inquires: upon this ground, why should a still later date not be named, since even Tertullian wrote vehemently against the same Gnosis.(4) There can be little doubt that the author was a representative of Ebionitic Gnosticism, which had once been the purest form of primitive Christianity, but later, through its own development, though still more through the rapid growth around it of Paulinian doctrine, had

assumed a position closely verging upon heresy. It is not necessary for us, however, to enter upon any exhaustive discussion of the date at which the Clementines were written; it is sufficient to show that there is no certain ground upon which a decision can be based, and that even an approximate conjecture can scarcely be reasonably advanced. Critics variously date the composition of the original Recognitions from about the middle of the second century to the end of the third, though the majority are agreed in placing them at least in the latter century.(1) They assign to the Homilies an origin at different dates within a period commencing about the middle of the second century, and extending to a century later.2

In the Homilies there are very numerous quotations

of sayings of Jesus and of Gospel history, which are generally placed in the mouth of Peter, or introduced with such formulae as: "The teacher said," "Jesus said," "He said," "The prophet said," but in no case does the author name the source from which these sayings and quotations are derived. That he does, however, quote from a written source, and not from tradition, is clear from the use of such expressions as "in another place [———](1) he has said," which refer not to other localities or circumstances, but another part of a written history.(2) There are in the Clementine Homilies upwards of a hundred quotations of sayings of Jesus or references to his history, too many by far for us to examine in detail here; but, notwithstanding the number of these passages, so systematically do they vary, more or less, from the parallels in our canonical Gospels, that, as in the case of Justin, Apologists are obliged to have recourse to the elastic explanation, already worn so threadbare, of "free quotation from memory" and "blending of passages" to account for the remarkable phenomena presented. It must, however, be evident that the necessity for such an apology at all shows the insufficiency of the evidence furnished by these quotations. De Wette says: "The quotations of evangelical works and histories in the pseudo-Clementine writings, from their nature free and inaccurate, permit only an uncertain conclusion to be

drawn as to their written source."(1) Critics have maintained very different and conflicting views regarding that source. Apologists, of course, assert that the quotations in the Homilies are taken from our Gospels only.(2) Others ascribe them to our Gospels, with a supplementary apocryphal work: the Gospel according to the Hebrews, or the Gospel according to Peter.(3) Some, whilst admitting a subsidiary use of some of our Gospels, assert that the author of the Homilies employs, in preference, the Gospel according to Peter;(4) whilst others, recognizing also the similarity of the phenomena presented by these quotations with those of Justin's, conclude that the author does not quote our Gospels at all, but makes use of the Gospel according to Peter, or the Gospel according to the Hebrews.(5) Evidence permitting of such divergent conclusions manifestly cannot be of a decided character. We may affirm, however, that few of those who are

willing to admit the use of our Synoptics by the author of the Homilies along with other sources, make that concession on the strength of the absolute isolated evidence of the Homilies themselves, but they are generally moved by antecedent views on the point. In an inquiry like that which we have undertaken, however, such easy and indifferent judgment would obviously be out of place, and the point we have to determine is not whether an author may have been acquainted with our Gospels, but whether he furnishes testimony that he actually was in possession of our present Gospels and regarded them as authoritative.

We have already mentioned that the author of the Clementine Homilies never names the source from which his quotations are derived. Of these very numerous quotations we must again distinctly state that only two or three, of a very brief and fragmentary character, literally agree with our Synoptics, whilst all the rest differ more or less widely from the parallel passages in those Gospels. Some of these quotations are repeated more than once with the same persistent and characteristic variations, and in several cases, as we have already seen, they agree more or less closely with quotations of Justin from the Memoirs of the Apostles. Others, again, have no parallels at all in our Gospels, and even Apologists are consequently compelled to admit the collateral use of an apocryphal Gospel. As in the case of Justin, therefore, the singular phenomenon is presented of a vast number of quotations of which only one or two brief phrases, too fragmentary to avail as evidence, perfectly agree with our Gospels; whilst of the rest, which all vary more or less, some merely resemble combined passages of two Gospels, others merely contain the sense, some

present variations likewise found in other writers or in various parts of the Homilies are repeatedly quoted with the same variations, and others are not found in our Gospels at all. Such phenomena cannot be fairly accounted for by any mere theory of imperfect memory or negligence. The systematic variation from our Synoptics, variation proved by repetition not to be accidental, coupled with quotations which have no parallels at all in our Gospels, more naturally point to the use of a different Gospel. In no case can the Homilies be accepted as furnishing evidence even of the existence of our Gospels.

As it is impossible here to examine in detail all of the quotations in the Clementine Homilies, we must content ourselves with this distinct statement of their character, and merely illustrate briefly the different classes of quotations, exhausting, however, those which literally agree with passages in the Gospels. The most determined of recent Apologists do not afford us an opportunity of testing the passages upon which they base their assertion of the use of our Synoptics, for they simply assume that the author used them without producing instances.(1)

The first quotation agreeing with a passage in our Synoptics occurs in Hom. iii. 52: "And he cried, saying: Come unto me all ye that are weary," which agrees with the opening words of Matt. xi. 28, but the phrase does